Sina Grace talks about Marvel and Iceman - and he's NOT happy

[Tycon]

weeeeeeeee

Yep. Based on his ideas & lack of actions, I don't care for Robinson period. A black editor, yet said / did nothing about the whitewashing of Monet during Weapon X. And when asked about it on twitter, what a shock he didn't respond. lol

Hell David Yardin is more faithful to characters of color.
https://twitter.com/davidyardin/stat...24266017669120

Funny enough I think I trust Hickman more than his editors to actually leave a note about making sure Monet or any other black person in this run aren’t incorrectly colored.

[Strong Girl Daken]

Grace is right that he knew how to write for his audience and Marvel was clueless about it. Iceman is still all over LGBTQ bookstores. Darkveil did get a lot of hype despite Marvel. Imagine what things would have been like if Marvel made an effort?

He was also tackling things like performativity, internalization, assimilation, conversion therapy. And did so likably with humour and heart. FFS marvel.

The same publisher telling crude trans murder stories with straight cis characters for shock value. Happy Pride!

[Snoop Dogg]

The juice in that video starts at 16:14 and it still makes my jaw drop hearing it all again.

[Silver Fang]

Funny enough I think I trust Hickman more than his editors to actually leave a note about making sure Monet or any other black person in this run aren’t incorrectly colored.

I'd like that. I will just always be wary when it comes to Monet. The HOX 3 cover had a yellow light cast over the characters, so her coloring was hard to read. But she looked pretty light, with brown hair. The following cover, she was darker in every way, which I prefer. And I am hoping it stays that way without the bouncing around.

Even in X-Factor she could be very much brown, but change back to white on the same page. Like here for example.
Black to White1.jpg
Brown on the top. White on the bottom. lol I hope we don't have this in HOX. Someone brought up something on twitter, and I saved the post but have to find it. Where the compliment a colorist who did well with showing light on someone with melanin. Instead of whitening their skin, they do work to show how the light would reflect on it. Compared to some colorists that show light on a black person by turning them white.

But I know already not to trust Robinson. Another example, again everyone knows Creed was one of my favorite characters. Robinson made some comments on twitter that showed he didn't understand crap about the character, nor had he done proper research. So that put him on thin ice with me quickly. Monet is whitewashed, and he does nothing. He was editor for the crappy Uncanny War of Realms tie-in and on one letters page, he outright said what Creed could remember about his inversion would be brought up. And no it sure as Hell was not. Nothing about his previous status was addressed. So on top of being shady with characters of his own color, he's also shown to be a liar.

[Snoop Dogg]

X-Office but also X-Creators but also X-Fans but also the X-Men themselves?

[Rosebunse]

X-Office but also X-Creators but also X-Fans but also the X-Men themselves?

Yeah, the X-Men are a, um, speci, hellish franchise. I pity all who land there.

[Tycon]

The juice in that video starts at 16:14 and it still makes my jaw drop hearing it all again.

“You can’t use the X-Men in the four last issues” that always takes me out

[Snoop Dogg]

“You can’t use the X-Men in the four last issues” that always takes me out

Change of plans, guys! Your endings now have to tie in to these events! Be happy, it's a surprise! What are their plots? That'll be a surprise, too!

[skyvolt2000]

For all of the progress the LGBT community has made, there is still much work to be done. Pride Month is a reminder of that.

It's saddening, but not surprising that they threw Grace under the bus for trying to do more than be the "token gay writer". After all the hate Grace got on Twitter (death threats, violence threats, rape threats), Marvel barely backed him up.

I enjoyed his Iceman run, and I hope that the powers that be make better decisions in the future.

THIS.....

I don't care if he was a bad writer or whatever-that is NO excuse for what he had to dealt with from certain groups.
Because I can think of a LOT of white straight males who have put out WORST and LOW selling books that no one threw a fit about.

I'm a bit confused at what exactly is his point here...

If Marvel had no faith in that book-they never should have green lighted it.
The book got press in mainstream media and suddenly that was such a bad thing that Grace got restricted in what promotion he could do.
His book did well as a trade and they didn't care. Mind you books like Moon Girl & Squirrel Girl have THRIVED as trades.

We need diverse writers but we also need diverse editors and others in management positions.

Let me warn you ALL about that-you can have that and nothing can change or get worst.

Cyborg did so bad that it was looking UP at Moon Girl in sales during his first run when the writer QUIT.
His second run was doing numbers at issue 6 that Sam Wilson CA did at issue 23. Before it was AXED in the middle of a story.

Static saw his writer a Milestone ALUM who WROTE Static get chased off in favor of an artist who NEVER wrote a book.
What do they have in common? BLACK EDITOR.

You have to be careful with WHO you hire. Going the easy route has no color or sexuality.


And I am sure Grace might have burned a bridge but I can guarantee you ALL SOMEONE way higher up at Disney is NOT liking this. Because you are playing with money now because who knows what creator is reading that post.
I bet Marvel will stand by creators sooner than later.

[mikelmcknight72]

Keep in mind that Marvel let themselves get burned by, with apologies to Tropic Thunder, forgetting that one should never go full SJW. For a while there, they allowed pretty much every major character to darned near simultaneously have diversity replacements. Steve with Sam and a progressive bent to the stories. Tony with Riri, and she came out of nowhere but was suddenly 15 years old but the best. Thor with Jane, probably the best done of the three. If they'd done it mostly one at a time with some overlap, it would likely have been better received. That's not what they did, the blowback was predictable, and it wasn't nearly as much about bigotry or opposition to diversity as some would have you believe. The real issue is that it was clumsily done, and it was too much at once. Even your most progressive comics fan doesn't usually want that much change at once. Especially when that change is transparently an attempt to check off some diversity boxes permanently based on a status quo change that only the most naive would believe to be anything but temporary.

On top of that, you have poorly written outing of Iceman that stirred up controversy from multiple camps. That is compounded with the problem that many gay characters, once confirmed to be so, suddenly seem to have few or no stories except those that revolve around being gay. It sounds to me like Marvel editorial may have been trying to avoid that particular pitfall. I would imagine that both for sales, better stories, and better writing, they'd like Iceman to be more like a real person. By this, I mean that being gay is just one facet of who he is as a character.

[Rosebunse]

Keep in mind that Marvel let themselves get burned by, with apologies to Tropic Thunder, forgetting that one should never go full SJW. For a while there, they allowed pretty much every major character to darned near simultaneously have diversity replacements. Steve with Sam and a progressive bent to the stories. Tony with Riri, and she came out of nowhere but was suddenly 15 years old but the best. Thor with Jane, probably the best done of the three. If they'd done it mostly one at a time with some overlap, it would likely have been better received. That's not what they did, the blowback was predictable, and it wasn't nearly as much about bigotry or opposition to diversity as some would have you believe. The real issue is that it was clumsily done, and it was too much at once. Even your most progressive comics fan doesn't usually want that much change at once. Especially when that change is transparently an attempt to check off some diversity boxes permanently based on a status quo change that only the most naive would believe to be anything but temporary.

On top of that, you have poorly written outing of Iceman that stirred up controversy from multiple camps. That is compounded with the problem that many gay characters, once confirmed to be so, suddenly seem to have few or no stories except those that revolve around being gay. It sounds to me like Marvel editorial may have been trying to avoid that particular pitfall. I would imagine that both for sales, better stories, and better writing, they'd like Iceman to be more like a real person. By this, I mean that being gay is just one facet of who he is as a character.

But the issue here is Sina Grace's treatment seemingly becsuse of his sexuality.

Plus, while the push for diversity wasn't handled as well as we would have liked, let's be honest, bigotry was a major problem. Holy ****, we had people complaining that Secret Empire was too mean to Nazis and white supremacists.

[Snoop Dogg]

The story is the X-Office signing off on solo book #44 with Bobby being out as the hook, Grace wanting more than the average X solo book that runs for a year because of its place in the culture, and then obviously not being happy when its length is determined by the immediate money like all other books, when marketing treats it like another solo X-Book that runs for a year, or when he's left on his own with social media like other creators but with a larger scale of harassment than most. The additional challenges stacked on top of the early freelance experience with the big dawg publisher made it so it and the scope of the project were not suited to him or what he was trying to do. That is the reality of the situation. Now choose your side!

[Thievery]

But the issue here is Sina Grace's treatment seemingly becsuse of his sexuality.

Plus, while the push for diversity wasn't handled as well as we would have liked, let's be honest, bigotry was a major problem. Holy ****, we had people complaining that Secret Empire was too mean to Nazis and white supremacists.

I would say that the idea of white supremacists and Nazis feeling picked on is incredibly funny, sad, and hypocritical, but dam, that's so fucked up that I wont even put lol in this comment. I don't remember those bigots feeling so angry over that story. I thought that it was just Cap fans feeling upset because they felt that Cap had become a Nazi himself.

[Snoop Dogg]

Grace going into the year 2017's torrent of moronic Twitter harassment



Spencer going in already having survived 2016

[mikelmcknight72]

Seemingly is the operative word, and it is being used based on Grace's admittedly biased perspective on the topic. That doesn't mean Grace is wrong, it simply doesn't mean that Grace is right, either. As human beings, we all like to secretly think we know what others are thinking, what is in their hearts, and what their motives are. Sometimes we are right. We aren't always right, and we all bring our biases into the interpretation we do. Unfortunately, the progressive community tends to assign bigotry as a motivate to those with whom they differ. More often than not, they are wrong to do so. People differ about ideology and methodology all the time without bigotry actually being involved. Stampeding towards bigotry as a motive, especially when it is not in fact a motive, is a useful tool to dehumanize those with whom you disagree, and marginalize them.

My guess would be that the primary motivation of the leading publisher in the print comics industry is fiscal. They need to steward their properties and their customer pool well. Part of that is remembering that comics aren't just for progressives, comics are for everyone. No publisher can hope to remain on top and in business if progressives are the only customer pool upon which they rely. As they leading publisher, what hurts Marvel and their bottom line hurts the print comics industry. Marvel needs to do well to help themselves directly, and to perpetuate the industry. Part of editorials job is to protect the properties to the best of their abilities and judgements, and part of doing that is to shepherd the characters and rein in what they feel might be excess on the part of writers. Writers, I might add, who only write certain characters for a season. Further, writers who only right for a specific publisher for a season or seasons. Grace may feel ownership of Iceman, and the characters he introduced or developed. That is good to a point, but those are not Grace's characters. They are Marvel's characters.