beccatoria (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccatoria) wrote2014-08-04 09:53 pm
beccatoria) wrote2014-08-04 09:53 pm
Comics! Does Vertigo Count? (No, no, not Count Vertigo; I hate Green Arrow.)
I'M NOT DEAD!
I do need to find more time to post here. So to start with, I was just inspired to write something reasonably lengthy over on tumblr, so I'm actually going to copy it here because god but I loathe tumblr as a space for complex human interaction or discussion. And this is my place of Archiving Thoughts.
Also I think we all just have to accept that a large percentage of this blog will be Comic Books for the forseeable future. I'm genuinely sorry. <3
So the setup:
There was a text post as follows:
To which there was then a response effectively composed of animated .gifs of DC's television/film output from the last decade, but unusually including all the stuff Warner Brothers makes based on DC properties that aren't part of DC's main superhero universe but were published under various imprints (primarily Vertigo).
I sort of wasn’t going to reblog it because it was a little petty? But then I saw the “makes Black Widow movie” and got bitter because what the hell, if you're going to do that, I'm going to pretend there's obviously an upcoming Wonder Woman film and that they're casting Dwayne Johnson as Shazam and SCREW IT I SUCCUMBED TO PETTY BITTERNESS!
But I also reblogged it because I really liked that it included DC's Vertigo output in there, but...I've been wondering for a while now how that stuff should figure into the conversations we have about these companies and/or about their shared superhero universes.
This is a genuine question to which I have no good answer. Because DC and Marvel generally ship a comparable number of titles; DC more often ship slightly more but that includes all their Vertigo stuff (as well as, I think, more licensed comics, though particularly with Star Wars, that may be shifting).
And on the one hand, it’s only fair to compare like with like - superheroes with superheroes. That’s a specific genre with representational problems, and it’s a specific type of story we all love (or well, us superhero fans do, I mean). Vertigo publishing a 70s gangster comic, a revenge-thriller, a creepy supernatural book and a retold set of fairytales, all starring women, doesn’t fix my problem if what I want is a woman in spandex punching a volcano. It really doesn’t. The Losers’ majority poc team doesn’t fix the whiteness of superhero universes.
"Go somewhere else," isn’t a useful response.
"We do that stuff, but in our Vertigo line," sends a message of ghettoisation.
But at the same time, Vertigo forms part of DC’s output and almost never figures into conversations about what DC is doing, media-wise. They put time and resources into maintaining an imprint that specifically exists to publish original “indie” style comic books, even though they could almost certainly make more by putting out another Bat-related title.
I mean, a certain amount of this is nostalgia. I’m probably a comic book fan at ALL because of Vertigo in the 90s, and I think that’s likely true of a lot of women my age. Karen Berger probably did more than anyone else in the industry to normalise the graphic novel and its place on the shelves of our bookstores. (And I guess I also think it’s cool that Vertigo has only ever been headed up by women; Shelly Bond succeeded Karen Berger).
But…okay, knowing Watchmen is somehow a DC property is probably not that unusual, but I honestly wonder how many people know that movies like Red, the Losers, Road to Perdition and Stardust are all also based on graphic novels and comic series originally published by DC?
Probably not many?
And like I said, I think you can use these points to dodge the issue. Agent Carter is a big deal because a woman is anchoring a TV series - they are making superhero-related media starring a women. Pointing out that DC (well, it’s parent company) are putting out iZombie, which also stars a woman, isn’t a cleanly relevant parallel.
But it also seems sort of shitty to pretend iZombie isn’t there.
Also amusingly nowhere in that gifset did I see the 2004 Catwoman movie. There are just some things no one can bring themselves to mention voluntarily... (Lol, except me: SKIN LIKE LIVING MARBLE!)
Anyway, yeah. There is my unanswered question. I hope you've all had a nice month while I've been in posting limbo. :)
I do need to find more time to post here. So to start with, I was just inspired to write something reasonably lengthy over on tumblr, so I'm actually going to copy it here because god but I loathe tumblr as a space for complex human interaction or discussion. And this is my place of Archiving Thoughts.
Also I think we all just have to accept that a large percentage of this blog will be Comic Books for the forseeable future. I'm genuinely sorry. <3
So the setup:
There was a text post as follows:
MARVEL: *makes Avengers*
MARVEL: *makes Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Captain America sagas*
MARVEL: *makes Agents of Shield*
MARVEL: *makes Guardians of the Galaxy*
MARVEL: *makes Black Widow movie*
DC: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...... MORE BATMAN.
To which there was then a response effectively composed of animated .gifs of DC's television/film output from the last decade, but unusually including all the stuff Warner Brothers makes based on DC properties that aren't part of DC's main superhero universe but were published under various imprints (primarily Vertigo).
I sort of wasn’t going to reblog it because it was a little petty? But then I saw the “makes Black Widow movie” and got bitter because what the hell, if you're going to do that, I'm going to pretend there's obviously an upcoming Wonder Woman film and that they're casting Dwayne Johnson as Shazam and SCREW IT I SUCCUMBED TO PETTY BITTERNESS!
But I also reblogged it because I really liked that it included DC's Vertigo output in there, but...I've been wondering for a while now how that stuff should figure into the conversations we have about these companies and/or about their shared superhero universes.
This is a genuine question to which I have no good answer. Because DC and Marvel generally ship a comparable number of titles; DC more often ship slightly more but that includes all their Vertigo stuff (as well as, I think, more licensed comics, though particularly with Star Wars, that may be shifting).
And on the one hand, it’s only fair to compare like with like - superheroes with superheroes. That’s a specific genre with representational problems, and it’s a specific type of story we all love (or well, us superhero fans do, I mean). Vertigo publishing a 70s gangster comic, a revenge-thriller, a creepy supernatural book and a retold set of fairytales, all starring women, doesn’t fix my problem if what I want is a woman in spandex punching a volcano. It really doesn’t. The Losers’ majority poc team doesn’t fix the whiteness of superhero universes.
"Go somewhere else," isn’t a useful response.
"We do that stuff, but in our Vertigo line," sends a message of ghettoisation.
But at the same time, Vertigo forms part of DC’s output and almost never figures into conversations about what DC is doing, media-wise. They put time and resources into maintaining an imprint that specifically exists to publish original “indie” style comic books, even though they could almost certainly make more by putting out another Bat-related title.
I mean, a certain amount of this is nostalgia. I’m probably a comic book fan at ALL because of Vertigo in the 90s, and I think that’s likely true of a lot of women my age. Karen Berger probably did more than anyone else in the industry to normalise the graphic novel and its place on the shelves of our bookstores. (And I guess I also think it’s cool that Vertigo has only ever been headed up by women; Shelly Bond succeeded Karen Berger).
But…okay, knowing Watchmen is somehow a DC property is probably not that unusual, but I honestly wonder how many people know that movies like Red, the Losers, Road to Perdition and Stardust are all also based on graphic novels and comic series originally published by DC?
Probably not many?
And like I said, I think you can use these points to dodge the issue. Agent Carter is a big deal because a woman is anchoring a TV series - they are making superhero-related media starring a women. Pointing out that DC (well, it’s parent company) are putting out iZombie, which also stars a woman, isn’t a cleanly relevant parallel.
But it also seems sort of shitty to pretend iZombie isn’t there.
Also amusingly nowhere in that gifset did I see the 2004 Catwoman movie. There are just some things no one can bring themselves to mention voluntarily... (Lol, except me: SKIN LIKE LIVING MARBLE!)
Anyway, yeah. There is my unanswered question. I hope you've all had a nice month while I've been in posting limbo. :)
no subject
Yeah, totally, although I think--and I know you don't exactly mean it this way!--even trying to figure that out comes from this bizarre idea that you can add up what one is doing, and what the other is doing, and have one WIN, have one BE BETTER, particularly when it comes to things like diversity, or doing interesting things with the genre, or whatever. When really, it's just...well, the conversation really has to be broader than just stacking up things on each side? And pitting them against each other just makes one seem progressive, when they BOTH have so far to go, and totally changes the tenor of the conversation to a petty one instead of a substantive one? It's like we let them pit us against each other, so we forget how dismal they both can be.
I do wonder how much of this comes from comics being SO HUGE that fairly new or casual fans can only take in part of it at once. Like I tried a little Marvel and then kind of just didn't continue, b/c it was TOO MUCH, and I had to triage what I wanted to pay attention to. And DC has Diana, so I read Diana-related things, and there's very little of my money or attention left over for other stuff. And to newish fans, superheroes may LOOK like what the publishers do as a whole, and you actually have to be somewhat conversant in the structure of the industry and the output as a whole to even understand how Vertigo is related to DC, or what else Marvel is doing besides superheroes, and etc. And MCU has brought in a lot of people to the convo who may be fairly new to comics, or fairly casual comics fans.
So it feels easy and neat to line up superheroes vs. superheroes, talk about the ones a particular person is familiar with, and make a pronouncement damning the other publisher. And then fans of the other publisher, who are almost certainly MORE familiar with it than you are, have the same reaction to your dismissing those things. And in that simplistic context, even saying "well yeah but DC also has Vertigo" or something FEELS LIKE A DEFENSIVE MOVE, and sometimes it totally IS a defensive move. But sometimes it's just saying "well but here's a thing that exists too that should be part of the discussion of what exists and why it matters."
tl;dr the structure of the whole conversation can be really false, but even trying to point that out can reinforce it by making you feel like you're just defending your chosen publisher.
In conclusion, SENSATION COMICS.
no subject
Aaaand, the whole thing is complicated because it can be hard to shift the conversation to just include more indie-style stuff (cus Vertigo is DC, but functionally, in terms of content, it publishes "indie" comics) because - while this ISN'T true in bookstores - in the direct market, superheros are just so overwhelmingly dominant. It can become like the games industry. Pointing out the indie games that are doing fun, cool stuff is so far removed from the toxic reality of the gaming industry on a corporate level that it's...derailing to mention it. Even while it's simultaneously important that it get mentioned.
Yargh.
In conclusion: WHY IS SENSATION COMICS NOT UNTIL NEXT WEEK? BY THEN I WILL BE A WHOLE YEAR OLDER. I NEED IT, PRECIOUS! I NEED IT NOWWWWWWW.