Looking at the DC fandom

[Agent Z]

Age: Under 35

Ethnicity: Black

I like bananas but prefer apples and pineapples.

I wouldn't say this has affected my reading experience much but my interaction with other posters here has made me more aware of certain dynamics in other countries.

Ethinicity: I'm brazilian, so I guess "all of them"? Anyway, from what I know it's a mix of white (portuguese, german, italian and spaniard) and at least two different types of Natives on my mom side, and my dad's side is almost exclusively black, but with some dutch and native in an unknown proportion. For american standards I'd be black, for Brazilian standards I'm officially brown, but read as white when in white environments. Except for the police, of course.

Male, over 35 (39 to be precise).

Bananas are ok, but I tend to prefer fruit with which you can make caipirinhas.

My reading enjoyment varies. The age is meaningless; I like modern and experimental storytelling so I'm not really nostalgic for "how they did in the Bronze Age" or stuff like that. Ethinicity is a factor, though; as the debate around these questions evolves, and we understand better things like stereotyping and such, poorly included minority characters tend to bother me more and more. I actually got angry at a comic for the first time in my life when Wallace West (then Wally) debuted. I've been that kid with his arm twisted. Not cool. And having a horse in this race ended up making me more attentive to the representation of women and other minorities as well.

PS: I'd like to reiterate that, at least here in Brazil, "DaCosta" is not a real surname. It's "da Costa". So pretty much every brazilian comics character that you ever read had an inexistent name. Also, the correct form would be "Mr. Costa" not "Mr. da Costa", and I have no idea how Sunspot hadn't fired his entire staff over this yet.

Employees don't grow on trees you know.

[Dav85]

White
35
It probably influences my experience because I enjoy genres, characters and titles I didn't like when I was younger

[Korath]

I'm white, male, under 35 and being French, I don't think it's what coloring my reading most - that would definitively be my political affiliation !

[Psy-lock]

White-ish, male, under 35, I like bananas. I wouldn't say it affects my reading experience in a major way. My favorite DC characters are Wonder Woman, the Hawks and Teen Titans, I tend to gravitate towards more "diverse" and underdog-y characters in general.

[The True Detective]

Black
Under 35 (30 to be exact)
Male
I absolutely hate bananas, their smell alone makes me sick
I don't think any of this has affected my reading experience at all tbh.

[Rufio]

doesn't not affect my reading experience You sure about that?


I’m kidding! I know what you meant! I chose that, btw.

[Light of Justice]

Asian (not the small eyes small nose race *rolls eyes*, but South East one).
Under 35.
Female.
Not really? I mean, of the Trinity, I don't read Wonder Woman and when I think again, I have very little favorite female heroes, does my gender affect that? I love Starfire and Black Widow though.
And I don't give a **** about character's race when I read comic (I thought that's the point of anti-racism. You know, not judge based on race). Bao Pham sounds like Thailand or Vietnamese name (both are South East Asia) but I'm not fond of him, because the last thing we need is another kid who protested about Batman 'no killing rule' and offered 'permanet solution'.
Banana is fine, but if you have banana trees in front, beside and on back of your house (and also your neighborhood), there's time when I get completely sick of banana.

[HAN9000]

Asian, female, under 35
One of the dumbest thing I ever heard reading comics is someone identifies with characters only because of their race and gender instead of what they do or the way they think.

[HAN9000]

Asian (not the small eyes small nose race, but South East one).
Under 35.
Female.
Not really? I mean, of the Trinity, I don't read Wonder Woman and when I think again, I have very little favorite female heroes, does my gender affect that? And I don't give a **** about character's race when I read comic (I thought that's the point of anti-racism. You know, not judge based on race). Bao Pham sounds like Thailand or Vietnamese name (both are South East Asia) but I'm not fond of him.
Banana is fine, but if you have banana trees in front, beside and on back of your house (and also your neighborhood), there's time when I get completely sick of banana.

Maybe you didn’t intend to but I should say “small eyes” is a racial stereotype of Asian people.

[Light of Justice]

Maybe you didn’t intend to but I should say “small eyes” is a racial stereotype of Asian people.

Yes, I know. And I mocked the Western that often say all Asian have small eyes and small noses (even small penises). Asia is way more diverse than that (don't know about penis size though, I mean excuse me?).

[CPSparkles]

I'm Black African
Under 35
Female
recently started to negatively affect my reading experience
hate bananas

[Restingvoice]

I'm Black African
Under 35
Female
recently started to negatively affect my reading experience

Ooh. What's the cut off point?

[tib2d2]

Asian, female, under 35
One of the dumbest thing I ever heard reading comics is someone identifies with characters only because of their race and gender instead of what they do or the way they think.

Amen to that!

White
Male
Over 35

I do enjoy a banana from time to time

[Dark Falz]

I'm mixed, so none of the racial choices really apply to me, or at least that's how I seeit.

I'm under 35.

As for my reading experience...uhh...Yeah, sure. I mean, you don't see too many mixed characters, and the ones that are mixed (like Miles Morales, even though that's a different company) seem kind of superficially so, in that he is basically seen as just black (more on that later). And you most certainly, MOST CERTAINLY, never see (or extremely rarely see) stuff that is actually catered to mixed people*, which I get, because there haven't been a whole lot of us around (at least comparatively), but the fact is, there's more and more of us these days. And now it's to the point where I can't leave my home without either seeing people swirling or seeing product of swirl walking around.

So, it's pretty fascinating that there's this burgeoning demo and because of that, it's vital we get OUR OWN voices out there, because our voices are not necessarily black voices. Society has had this idea of shoving people like us in a black box, because I guess that's simple, but that is lacking nuance at best, and just wrong at worst. I can only speak for myself, but stuff like Black Lightning, Luke Cage, and Black Panther--these black superheroes that are all about blackness--I do not relate to at all, nor do they represent me, my experience, or whatever. I'm sure they represent some people, though, and that's fine.

Also, about the stuff that seems like it might kind of cater to mixed people (I don't think it usually actually does, it just uses that as a plot point somehow) it often makes this big effing deal about it, and because of that, I often don't relate with that stuff. Again, only speaking for myself, being mixed wasn't that big of a deal for me, or that's how I perceived it. Some of your family looked like this, some of your family looked like that, you looked like whatever you looked like, and for the most part that was life and that just was what it was. It's not like I was ruminating deeply on it every second of every day. Maybe other people around me were, but for the most part, they usually kept it to themselves, if so.

[Crazy Diamond]

Black
Woman (don't really like saying female much but picked that since it's on the poll)
under 35

Not sure what is meant by "informs reading experience" so I picked both positively and negatively. I have liked characters from all sorts of backgrounds but seeing shows like Static Shock and Justice League/Justice League Unlimited caught my attention due to seeing more Black characters who mattered in those shows. Before that I was familiar with DC due to stories like Death and Return of Superman, The Dark Knight Returns, and Knightfall but most of my exposure to their characters was from the movies, video games, and cartoons. When it came to comics most of the people I knew read Marvel as far as superheroes went and one of those reasons was because they were perceived as handling Black characters better than DC. One classmate I knew in high school even called DC the white man's comic book company. Apart from that, I was also reading DCs imprints, webcomics, manga, whatever I could find really so as DC seemed obsessed with "correcting" every mistake from Crisis on Infinite Earths onwards I read less and less of the main DCU.

As far as negatively goes, I'm not found of wallpapering characters or stereotypes. Characters like Houngan and the Obeah Man really stood out to me as some of the lamest villains around but that's on the writers. Never cared much for Hollywood Voodoo stuff and the demonizing of such traditions. Even Papa Midnite had this to some degree - it was one of the reasons why I decided to read the limited series about him by Mat Johnson since it wanted to flesh out his character more. Empress was alright though and I wish she'd stuck around after Young Justice ended.

I'd see titles like Power Company and books like Scalped and Sentences but it didn't seem like the EIC cared much about books like that. For every Blue Beetle, I saw what happened with Firestorm and the Milestone relaunch and over time just became lapsed.

Some of the interactions I've had with comic fans online were quite racist as well. That didn't affect how I read the books but it turned me off comic forums for awhile.

I love bananas especially fried, in pudding, smoothies, or as a cake. I hear banana milk is good too. I would buy bananas more but somehow after a few days they get these tiny little flies and they are a pain to get out of an apartment like mine. So I don't buy them often.