Changing Colors In Comics

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2017

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Gene and guest host Glen Weldon (our play cousin from Pop Culture Happy Hour) explore how comics are used as spaces for mapping race and identity. Gene visits Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse in Philadelphia, and chats with proprietor Ariell Johnson who is reclaiming the comic book store, which once made her uneasy as a black fan. Meanwhile, C. Spike Trotman, another black woman, has made a name for herself as an online comics publisher of Iron Circus Comics in Chicago. We also talk to artist and designer Ronald Wimberly for his perspective as a black creator who has worked for Marvel and DC, the titans of corporate comics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What's good, Joe?
0:01.1	This is Coat Switch.
0:02.0	I'm Gene Demby.
0:03.2	Chirine is off this week.
0:04.8	So over the last few days,
0:06.4	there's been a lot of chatter about comments made
0:09.0	by an executive at Marvel Comics.
0:10.6	You'll know Marvel as the publisher of titles
0:12.3	like The Avengers and the X-Men and Spider-Man.
0:14.8	Anyway, one of the executives at Marvel
0:16.8	said of the company's sales slump, quote,
0:19.2	people didn't want any more diversity.
0:21.5	So I swear we ain't planned it this way,
0:23.3	but today's episode happens to be about blackness and comics.
0:26.8	So today we're talking to three black people
0:29.1	who've carved out space for more black characters
0:31.3	and black creatives in the comic book world.
0:33.0	First up is Ariel Johnson,
0:34.3	who's the owner of a Malgum comics in Coffee House and Philly.
0:37.1	After her, we hear from Ronald Wimbley,
0:39.0	an artist in Brooklyn who has worked for DC
0:41.6	and Marvel the Big Two.
	...

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