Month: May 2016

I linked to my previous “symbols and characters” article just a couple weeks ago when talking about The Falcon, but I want to reference it again because it’s where I brought up the idea of plurality as an effective way to avoid the dangers of tokenism and superficiality in the case of minority characters. Put simply, it was the idea that while one woman in a group of men may end up defined first and foremost by the difference of her gender, and one black character in a group of whites may end up defined by their skin color, once you include more than one of them in your ensemble the audience will naturally begin to look deeper and suss out reasons why someone is interesting beyond just the fact that they stand out visually.

I included a quote from the late, great comics writer Dwayne McDuffie on the struggle that occurs when plurality is absent:

“My problem… and I’ll speak as a writer now… with writing a black character in either the Marvel or DC universe is that he is not a man. He is a symbol.”

McDuffie wasn’t saying he was incapable of writing a black character who wasn’t reduced to a symbol for all his race, he was  I can’t help but think that if Dwayne McDuffie were alive today, he would have been delighted with the most visible example yet of plurality with black characters in the Marvel universe, which is of course the now billion dollar plus phenomenon of Captain America: Civil War. Not one, not two, but three black superheroes are present as key parts of the narrative, not the least of which is the Black Panther himself, warrior king of the technologically superior African nation of Wakanda. Adilifu Nama was fascinated by The Falcon as a kid because he was a black man who could fly. T’Challa the Black Panther and Wakanda represent a vision of a highly advanced, independent black culture that never suffered the yoke of European Imperialism. Heck even speaking from the standpoint of a white dude that’s a pretty fascinating concept to flesh out, and I can only imagine how cool it stands as escapist fantasy for the folks T’Challa more physically resembles.

More importantly though, if you happened to be a young black kid looking for reflections of yourself in the media, CA: Civil War gives you more than one hero to choose from. The quippy, quick-thinking Falcon, the stoic War Machine and the regal Black Panther are all present, and wonder of wonders they even have conversations about things other than being black, which has got to pass one of those Bechdel-esque tests Hollywood so often fails to clear the bar on. Early on in the film Sam Wilson (Falcon) and James Rhodes (War Machine) even debate each other on different sides of an argument, which is something that shouldn’t register as a significant thing but because of the last 100 years of film, it kind of is. Also significant was me going beyond the idea that two black men could disagree in a major studio production (that wasn’t all about being black) and thinking that both men were military veterans but were still coming to different, reasoned conclusions on the same subject due to their specific personalities, friendships, and life experiences. You know, like people would do.

Again, that really shouldn’t be a revolutionary thing, but here we are. Plurality has enabled three black characters to compare and contrast with each other and, by doing so, to show the person and not just the symbol. A lot of credit here is no doubt due to the influence of producer Nate Moore, who fell in love with characters like Falcon, Black Panther and Luke Cage back in his comics nerd youth and campaigned to bring them, fully realized, to the big screen. Who could answer the white screenwriters who questioned (as I would have) if people really cared about The Falcon with a resounding YES, and who, at least for this shining moment, has helped solve McDuffie’s riddle on symbol vs. character.

The example of Nate Moore also shows the importance of getting some diverse voices in the production staff and writing rooms. It’s not about shoving political correctness down our throats, it’s about enabling plurality, and by doing that better enabling the characters to show forth and letting the fantasies of humanity have a fuller spectrum of experience.

Now Zombie Ranch being the two-person team it is, I’m not necessarily able to practice what I preach here, but I will say that Dawn has occasionally provided some valuable input from the feminine side which has helped me write the ladies of the comic. Beyond that I just keep it in mind and try to do the best I can, but I’m glad to see more and more examples of plurality working out in practice on the larger stage.

So in the first seven episodes of Zombie Ranch I mostly stuck to a system of 24 pages per chapter. Mostly. Episode 1 had 23 pages, and Episode 3 and 7 had 28 pages. In practice I’m guessing no one really noticed, since we don’t number the pages in the print versions and online we just use a consecutive numbering system. Still, it was fun for me when it happened to work out that Episode 4 and 5 ended and began in such a way as to be numbered story comic 99 and 100, respectively.

That was almost the case again as we approached the end of Episode 12. This time around I’d been pretty good about planning our storytelling to the 24 page mold. What with no real bosses or advertising to account for that’s still a completely arbitrary number, but it’s just come to feel right. Gives some division and structure.

I’ve always reserved the right to break it again if I felt the need. And lo, it became pretty tempting to do just that as I realized that if I extended Episode 12 for four more pages it would have an online number of 299, with Episode 13 starting on 300. Neato!

Except the circumstance I brought up of Episode 4 and 5 was a happy accident. Episode 1 being a page short and Episode 3 being four pages longer were both done because that was where it felt right to end them. This time? There was an interesting argument going on but it seemed like everyone in my notes and roughs was going to have their say and extending it might end up in a boring “get on with it!” situation. I could have cut away to check in on what the Exec or the Huachucas were up to but that didn’t seem right either, like any of those reveals really should wait for beyond the break. But oh, that 299-300 option was tantalizing.

In the end I spoke up about it to Dawn and she seemed surprised there was any question — she’s not really into keeping track of the “24” thing the way I am, but she declared that what was going on for comic 294 had completely felt to her like the penultimate page before we would end the episode and dragging on beyond 295 would be awkward at best.

So there we had it. Sometimes you just need that second perspective for — well, perspective. With that vote I sat down and finalized Suzie’s speech as the capper to the chapter and left the rest for next time, and I’m pretty sure that was the right call. When the story and the numbers come together naturally, it’s great, but that time I was being tempted to force it to fit for no real good reason. The numbers aren’t everything.

I have to admit, I’m a little bit in awe. Full disclosure — Captain America: Civil War did not end up supplanting Captain America: The Winter Soldier as my favorite Marvel Studios movie, just because I still feel the cinematography and pacing of the former was superior — but in terms of difficulty level going in, there is no way the former movie should have worked as well as it did. A 150 minute movie that manages to juggle 12 superheroes and tell a coherent story while giving each of them memorable moments? That’s a concept born of masochism. That’s the writer equivalent of attempting a Dragonforce song in the Rock Band video game on Expert setting.

Now your mileage may vary (heh) on how well the screenwriters and directors did, but from where I’m sitting? Pretty damn impressive. Beyond that, I’m not sure how far I should go in this blog, since in the States the movie only just premiered and even outside the States it hasn’t been out too long, thus it reasonably remains within my window of consideration for spoilers. But I’m going to tread a little bit dangerously as I address my fringe topic. Fringe because everyone wants to talk about Spider-Man and Black Panther and such. I’d rather talk about how this guy, born out of the comics of the 1970s…

…evolved into this guy for a 2016 major feature film (I’m using the collectible figure image since the movie still selections are still being a bit stingy):

The Falcon was never an important superhero to me, though I know that was not the case for everyone. I like to think Adilifu Nama has been over the moon for the past few years, at least since Anthony Mackie first donned the wings for Winter Soldier. Actually he may not have even needed the movies, since on the comics side of things Sam Wilson actually ended up taking on the Captain America mantle.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe didn’t go that far (yet?), but Sam made a great impression on me (and many others) in his Winter Soldier debut, both as a character and as an action hero. I was never really interested in Falcon because eh, he was just some dude who could fly and talk to birds. But by that metric, my much beloved (and maligned and dismissed by the masses) Hawkeye is just some dude who shoots trick arrows.

The MCU continues its upward battle to make Hawkeye cool to the mainstream, which I appreciate, but with Falcon I’ll argue they’ve now succeeded. In the MCU he started off as a cool guy who then basically turned out to be The Rocketeer with machine pistols. Not bad, but still fairly limited and relatively drab in appearance. Comparisons to Wesley Snipes as Blade were made. What I forgot — what, perhaps, I didn’t even expect — was that the next time Falcon appeared, there would be upgrades. Although his time in Ant-Man as the ill-fated defender of the Avengers’ storehouse was brief (sorry, Ant-Man is well past my spoiler expiration date), his costume now had a lot more color to it and his goggles did more than just keep off the bugs (pardon the pun). “It’s okay, he can’t see me,” brags Ant-Man, and the Falcon almost instantly responds, “I can see you!” Sitting next to me in the theater, Dawn states, “Well duh, Falcons have good eyes.”

Mind kinda blown at that connection. Probably shouldn’t have been, but it was. Suddenly Falcon wasn’t just the guy with wings, he was the guy you couldn’t hide from. Run through the tall grass all you want, little mouse (ant), he’s still gonna getcha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIrsOg9Wqp8

Falcon loses the fight in the end, but doesn’t do too badly for facing a completely unknown quantity.

Still, it took Civil War to make me a true believer. Civil War has reached a fever pitch of Falconosity where he’s doing things that are so cool and yet so obvious at the same time you wonder why no one thought of them before. Okay, perhaps that’s not fair since the original concept didn’t have metal feathers, but Falcon is hands down the best flier in the MCU right now and… augh, I really can’t say more without venturing into spoiler territory, but they’ve brought back basically all the elements a Falcon fan could probably wish for and then some, just imaginitively adapted for a new era. He’s a great character, he has a unique and badass fighting style, and even if Markus, McFeely and the Russos aren’t the biggest Falcon fans in the world, you’d never know it with the amount of thought that’s gone into presenting that while still preserving the essence. Non-Falcon partisans like me walk out fans, and I can only imagine the high any existing fans would have.

And yet none of it is at the expense of any other character, or the story itself.

That’s a damn good adaptation. And just damn good writing, period.

I was (and still am) a great aficionado of tabletop role-playing games. What are those? Well, the most well-known example is still Dungeons & Dragons, although that example still occasionally suffers from someone who thinks of teenagers in black cloaks gathered in secluded areas to perform sacrifices to Satan. The truth was always closer to a bunch of teenagers in t-shirts gathered around a dinner table to roll dice and stuff their faces with junk food.

Also, even back when I was a kid there were more games around than just Dungeons & Dragons. In particular there was a game called Champions, where you could create and play super heroes! I even did a retrospective article on the game, if you’re interested. Regardless, it remains to my knowledge the first game system with a baked-in feature where along with figuring out how strong or fast your hero was, you also had to specify weaknesses. Flaws, which could range from physical ones like the poisoning effect of certain space rocks, to purely psychological conditions like a fear of the dark or a refusal to kill. You could theoretically create a character who had no flaws, but if you did that you wouldn’t have as many points to spend on cool stuff.

This system was perhaps my first real experience with the greater concept that a well-rounded, memorable character is defined as much by what they can’t do or have trouble doing as what they’re awesome at. I believe this is at the root of a lot of the nerd protest regarding recent Batman and Superman re-imaginings, where for decades they’ve been defined by a “no kill” policy — perhaps arguably to their detriment, but it’s also arguably a big part of what makes them interesting. Characters with no drawbacks get boring, and boring gets forgotten.

But you don’t want to just do the proverbial blind throw at the dartboard for character flaws, either. They should make sense to who the person is and what they do and what their past has been like. For instance, Frank in our comic has had a history of expressing himself poorly when he’s stressed, so in this week’s comic when he tries to indulge in some wordplay it doesn’t go well. Rosa possibly could have made the line work, but Frank just gets crickets and confusion and comes close to blowing his top as a result.

A character like Frank can have the danger of seeming “too cool for school”, so it’s good to take him out of his comfort zone on occasion and remind the reader that there’s a beating heart under that stoic exterior. Meanwhile some characters like Chuck and Lacey can seem more flawed than competent, but just like those Champions characters I used to make I like to pretend that the scales balance out, and if someone seems more or less capable at the moment it tends to be a matter of circumstance and perspective rather than objective worth.

Pretty much anyone I know — certainly including myself — has had moments where they felt out of their depth. Letting those same kinds of moments happen in fiction is an excellent way to keep your audience connected and invested, even when the character in question is some otherwise absurdly competent being like James Bond, Indiana Jones or Ellen Ripley. Or a full-on superhero. But at any level of power, I keep that mental character sheet of strengths and weaknesses in my head, ready and waiting for the circumstance of the narrative to bring them out.