Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #74 by Drew Barth

Return to the City Enduring

Things are getting back to normal—for comic publishing. Series are coming out once again and the month’s schedules are filling out with series returns and delayed beginnings.

But things aren’t normal, not anymore. Every day we have to contend with who we are as a nation and who we are as readers. We make a choice with how we speak and how we act and whose voices we can uplift with whatever platform we have available. It’s one of the main reasons I wanted to return to N.K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell’s Far Sector. I wrote about the first issue seven months, or twenty years, ago and I didn’t know what kind of impact the story would have now.

Jemisin herself is already one of the most important writers of the 21^stcentury. Other works, like the recently released The City We Became, deal with the survival of a massive city in much in the same way Far Sector does. But here in the comics things are slightly different. The recently appointed Green Lantern Sojourner “Jo” Mullein must investigate the City Enduring and its first murder in five hundred years. This city has maintained its facade of peace for so long due to a genetic modification that has suppressed the emotions of every citizen—at least until the drug Switchoff allows them to turn that modification off completely. And this leads to the murder. And this murder leads to a protest. And this protest leads to an egregious display of murderous police force against the protesters.

The issue the above page come from released in late February and feels prophetic. Jemisin is able to recognize what has happened in the past and how it will inevitably come to our future. As a moment in the story, it’s devastating, but not surprising—much like the militarized police we see on the news nearly every evening and their own show of force. But in Far Sector, we have a mediator—we have someone with the power to stand up and the power ring up back them up. These moments are what good comics do best—they’re a mirror to the world’s horrors with a tangible, individual light of hope that we believe can save the day.

Far Sector is the kind of comic that we need right now and Jemisin and Campbell are the creators we need on that comic. Comics have always been political, but mainstream monthly comics have a problem with inclusivity. More than ever, we need BIPOC voices and BIPOC stories, we need BIPOC editors and publishers to bring these stories and creators into our comic shops and our lives. Comics as a medium have the potential to reach a massive audience and so it must have voices that reflect that audience. And comics need to reflect the world they exist in, they’re not in a vacuum and neither is this column. It’s why now is the time to donate—time, money, energy—to the organizations that need it the most. Comics are a community that needs to remember that Black Lives Matter and that we must do our part.

Get angry. Get involved. Get active. Get reading.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #21 by Drew Barth

Make Mine Not

Let’s talk about Marvel. If you’ve been following this article over the past few months, you’ll likely have noticed a few things: a focus on monthly comics, an undying love for the works of Kieron Gillen and Warren Ellis, Saga, a weird relationship with shonen, and a distinct lack of Marvel comics. I’ve mentioned Marvel briefly here and there, but not to any major extent. I’ve talked about DC, Image, Dark Horse, Uncivilized Books, Oni Press, and a host of others at great length, but Marvel has always stayed out of my articles. Why? Well, for the most part, I’ve been boycotting Marvel for a couple years now. Why boycott a whole publisher? Simple: Ike Perlmutter.

If you’re not familiar with the name, that’s okay, I wasn’t either until a few years ago. But he is the current Chairperson of Marvel Entertainment, which handles Marvel comics, animation, and television production. Perlmutter is also known for his outspoken support of the current president and Marco Rubio as well as his role as one of the shadow rulers of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Despite being in charge during a time of massive growth for Marvel comics, Perlmutter has more or less become the reason I refuse to buy anything from Marvel.

To have someone like Perlmutter as the Chairperson is insulting to Marvel’s legacy. At times I think we forget just how radical Marvel was in the past and to see it being run by someone who is fine with endorsing policies that are homophobic, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, racist, misogynistic, and downright vile is horrendous. To see Marvel, a publisher literally built by Jewish creators who made sure to put Captain America punching Hitler in the face in his debut comic and nearly in real life when Jack Kirby himself rolled up his sleeves to deck a Nazi who had come to the Marvel office threatening him with bodily harm; a publisher that looked at how issues like racism and genocide played out in America with the X-Men; and a publisher that featured its most prominent black hero in Black Panther fighting klansmen across an entire story arc. These are the stories and heroes that built the Marvel legacy and that made people love them as a publisher.

I do know that the people creating the comics very rarely, if ever, have a say in who is running the publishing machine, but it has to be disheartening. Some of the best creators are putting out brilliant work through Marvel right now—people like Chip Zdarsky, Kelly Thompson, Greg Pak, Saladin Ahmed, etc.—that is incredibly inclusive and diverse. But with someone like Perlmutter as the chair, we can only wonder how long those stories will stay around.

The last series I read from Marvel was America, by Gabby Rivera and Joe Quinones, which wrapped up over a year ago. It was in the middle of the series when I discovered who Ike Perlmutter was, but I needed to at least finish this series as a way to cap my time with Marvel. For the most part, America is nearly everything you would want from a great superhero story: solid characters, interesting plot, detailed setting, and a tone that, while light at times, wasn’t afraid to tackle heavy issues. Rivera and Quinones created a series so good I had to keep my ethics aside just so I could finish it. But after the finale, I was out.

I was done.

And I haven’t broken my boycott since.

Honestly, I want to break the boycott. Every single time I read about a new Marvel series that seems fun, I want to check out the first issue and see how it is. But I can’t. I won’t. And this intersection of wanting great stories and holding to this boycott is where all of these weird internal issues lie. I want to support these creators and the work they’re doing. But on the other hand, I don’t want that support to be interpreted by the Marvel board as a generalized, broad support of the company as a whole.

Even if I selectively buy just those series that celebrate what I want to see in comics, that money still goes toward paying people like Perlmutter or the editors that decided to make Captain America a Hydra agent (even if it was just an evil version of himself, it’s still in poor taste) and I don’t want to do that. Comics are, and always will be, inherently political. As a piece of popular culture, they can’t ever exist in a cultural vacuum. The creators even less so. And as someone who wants to support stories in the comic medium, I have to say “no” when I know that my support is also supporting something I hate.

And goddamn, this boycotting is difficult.

Get excited. Comics will break your heart.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.