racism

Q: What's your favorite example of a comic having an effect on the real world? -- @jamesdeleech A: You know, a lot of the questions I get for this column, at least the ones I tend to like answering, are the ones that are open to interpretation, and it's fun to pick and choose stories to talk about that back up a particular idea that I have about how something works. This one, though, is one of those questions that's about as close to having one definitive answer as is possible. When you talk about those great times when comics changed the real world, there's really only one choice. It's when Stetson Kennedy teamed up with Superman to bring down the Ku Klux Klan.

March: Book One was easily one of the best graphic novels of 2013. Not only did it begin a story of immense historical consequence-- the mid-20th Century fight for civil rights in the American South-- it also told that story from a strong, personal perspective. That perspective came from U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who serves as the reader's guide through some very weighty material. Now, the pressure's on. Lewis, his co-writer Andrew Aydin, and artist Nate Powell are getting set to release March: Book Two in early 2015, and their challenge is to follow up a lauded text -- one that's been used in a good many classrooms since publication -- with a second chapter that gets more violent and shows just how difficult the struggle for civil rights really was. ComicsAlliance chatted with Powell and Aydin for a few moments at Comic-Con International in San Diego to talk about that challenge, the difficulties of depicting such intense violence, and creating what's being regarded as an official historical text.

On sale in March from Top Shelf is Blue, the debut graphic novel of Australian cartoonist Pat Grant. The 96-page hardcover is a beautifully drawn allegorical adventure starring three kids in a provincial beach town as they navigate racism, immigration, surfing and a quest to see a real-life dead body...

At ComicsAlliance, we're believers in calling people out when they create something offensive, whether that involves tone-deaf comments from publishers about racial diversity or disconcerting disappearances of minorities. That's just half of the equation, though...

Last Thursday at Comic-Con International, during the first of four New 52 panels held by DC Comics to discuss their line-wide relaunch of superhero titles this September, a fan walked up to the microphone and posed a question to Co-Publisher Dan DiDio about the demographics of the New 52 creators: "Why did you go from 12% in women to 1% on your creative teams...

The comics world has been mourning the loss of writer and producer Dwayne McDuffie since his passing last month, and I recently stumbled across a website cataloging a series of interviews with McDuffie that address the issues he faced as a black writer working at Marvel and DC, and the discomfort, pigeon-holing and criticism he often encountered...

Another day, another racist freakout over non-white superheroes. But unlike the hilariously dishonest racism we saw when the Council of Conservative Citizens called for a boycott of Marvel's Thor movie on account of a mythical Norse god's depiction as a black man, a recent round of conservative attacks on Nightrunner -- DC's Muslim Batman of Paris -- are prejudicial in a more insidious way... Read

In what is surely the comics commentary equivalent of the pride musicians feel when "Weird Al" Yankovic parodies their songs, we're proud to announce that Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik have produced a new Penny Arcade comic inspired by ComicsAlliance's editorial on the racist outrage to Idris Elba's casting as a Norse god in Marvel Studios' Thor... Read More ...

Did you know that the totally made-up-by-medieval-drunks gods of Norse mythology were all white? Literally none of them were African. We didn't know that, but thanks to the prodigious efforts of the Council of Conservative Citizens and their friends at Boycott-Thor.com, the truth has been revealed: Heimdall, Sentry of Asgard, was white and Idris Elba, the English actor hired to portray Heimdall in

In this month's comic book solicitations, it's been revealed that Ray Palmer is making a return to comics as the Atom, following in the footsteps of characters like Hal Jordan and Barry Allen in what I like to call "regressive storytelling...