Damion Scott's "Uncanny Inhumans" Hip-Hop Variant Revealed

[Danileriver23]

A company that's for years used tokenism to present the illusion of diversity is again reducing black people and culture down to an easy to swallow stereotype and lauding it is as some form of representation. All the while systematically and historically not employing writer or artists of color or women for that matter. Oh and when they do, they get trotted around the dog show as a shining beacon of Marvel's (faux) progressivism. It's insincere just like all of these "i don't see color responses".

Ok...how are they reducing black people to a stereotype? this is a hip hop variant theme, not a "black people only do hip hop theme". I mean, I guess all the artists they've used are black, but that's because hip hop, especially older hip hop, was predominately black. but hip hop has always been about expression first, black culture second. If you're saying hip hop is only inductive of black culture and only black artists can provide it that is just wrong.

[Tazpocalapse]

I have to say this i am interested in how the creation process that went into this we see a combination of a comic line a musical genre and artists collaborating. I think that is a plus for everyone. I was surprised that Sanford Greene did the Ex-Xmen cover. This may be the start of Marvel reaching out to more creators, writers, and artists of color.

[Ceebiro]

It has nothing to do rap (or Hip Hop in general) being started by blacks and only blacks should support it. Real hip hop heads have never tried to outright ban and dictate who can and can't do what. From Emcees to Breakdancers, Turntable-lists, and Writers (Graffiti) this culture has always been open to the entire world. In this particular case Marvel chose to push a line wide initiative taking rap album covers and replacing them with their super heroes. The point that was being made was that Marvel claims they have a strong connection to these groups of people (which culturally is predominately black), but behind the scenes says otherwise. Of all the writers and artists that have helped push Hip Hop to the forefront that it is (which is predominately black) where are those artists and writers to help bring this initiative to life? People have an issue with this issue because it's another case of "We're cool with you and what you do, but we're not THAT cool with you". When I first heard of this initiative I thought it was a cool idea. Let's also not act like Hip Hop isn't one of the most listened to genre's of music yet they don't even air the awards for that category half the time.

I actually see this being an issue partly of demographics and partially of economics.

The number of non-black creators in the US, active in the industry currently, outstrips the number of black (AA or otherwise) creators by a substantial margin. Marvel does not give chances to people who do not have some product to demonstrate their ability to do what Marvel wants, period. You would have to be really good and more importantly know the right person to get that gig otherwise. Editors hire people they are familiar with or creators who have made a big enough impression and can potentially fit the tone of the product they want to sell to get a call. Now if the majority of editors are not consuming the tiny number of black-produced media, whether by interest or exposure, where are they going to find the black creators to fill in slots in their roster? Now things might be different if there were more black editors in comics, but I honestly can't think of one off the top of my head. More of the black individuals interested in comics seem to want to make comics rather than manage them.

A third point, comics in general is not a particularly lucrative business compared to other forms of media unless you are cranking out a lot of stuff. A lot of the top flight talent, black or otherwise, (at least artists) are more likely to go into film, animation and advertising. Unless their dream is to just make comics, they're more likely to get paid better elsewhere and have their work consumed by a larger number of people. The downside is that unless they're a writer or director, they're less likely to be known by the people consuming their work. There's a lot of direct interaction in comics that doesn't happen in other fields as they do in comics.

[Tayswift]

Currently or recently employed by Marvel Comics:
Olivier Coipel (artist), Humberto Ramos (artist), G. Willow Wilson (writer), Kelly Sue DeConnick (writer), Sara Pichelli (artist), Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas (writers), Sana Amanat (editor)

That's just off the top of my head.

stacey lee, sanford greene, erica henderson, laura braga, natacha bustos, the whole art team on starlord and kitty pryde

[Triniking1234]

So I guess when the manga cover variants come out we're gonna here garbage about Marvel appropriatising(???) Japanese culture for their own profit while not giving positions to people of Japanese descent.

:/

[Ceebiro]

So I guess when the manga cover variants come out we're gonna here garbage about Marvel appropriatising(???) Japanese culture for their own profit while not giving positions to people of Japanese descent.

:/

That pretty much never happens. The most we get are complaints about not liking that particular "style" (which is very broad) of art, as is evident in the covers previewed thus far.

[Supernature]

HOLY!

I'm shocked and not shocked at a comment like this.

Hip hop is a genre rooted in black culture, despite three of the most popular artists in the genre ever being the Beastie Boys, Vanilla Ice, and Eminem (perhaps the suburban white consumers of the genre had a pinch of bias there, as well as the white gatekeepers who chose what was on MTV and sold at Sam Goody). I really don't think hip hop excludes whites at all. If you are a white person who loves hip hop and puts their heart into it, I really think you will be accepted into the culture. Reading Brothers' reply to Brevoort, he mentions being in Tokyo and feeling affinity to Japanese who love (and in many ways 'appropriate') the genre.

BUT, Marvel and their Disney overlords (who, to be fair to them, I think are hands off in day to day publishing) are not white people who love hip hop as Woods loved golf. They are a corporate entity that is disproportionately white (and male) compared to America, and has made a marketing venture into an area of culture they have, as a company, had no interest in previously, and 'borrowed' from an ethnicity they have had only minor support for. This is something worth note.

I think white people are welcome in black culture without cries of appropriation... except when they're actually appropriating.

Quoted for truth. It's not exactly surprising to see this perfectly understandable comment misinterpreted though. People tend to enter these discussion determined not to get it.

So I guess when the manga cover variants come out we're gonna here garbage about Marvel appropriatising(???) Japanese culture for their own profit while not giving positions to people of Japanese descent.

:/

Just so you know: people who express discomfort with the way black culture is at times misused are often black themselves or have done some form of research to assess what limits there are when referencing black culture. Having supported so few black artists and then using the culture in this fashion comes off as a phony way to show interest in it and the demographic you're hoping to attract. It's perfectly fair.

If people of Japanese descent have a problem with the way their culture is being used, surely they'll let us know.

[Supernature]

You know what would really be cool? How about giving black artists some real, ongoing gigs instead of a one-time hip hop variant (images that Marvel otherwise has no real credibility in appropriating, especially not lately).

Seems to me that Marvel's just pushing these out as some sort of "look at us, we're cool, we're down" windowdressing without actually putting in the work to validate that statement.

Fraudulent.

Quoted for truth.

This whole initiative is really a great way for Marvel to highlight just how few people of color they have in their big leagues of heroes too, for that matter.
All those album covers featured minorities, but aside from Storm and Kamala Khan the Marvel version are quite the opposite.

Well done, I guess.

[square]

Also, to be clear...are you saying that Copiel does NOT meet the right prerequisite because he is not African-American, but rather African-Franco? Please, please tell me I mis interpreted what you meant.

I do not speak of any prerequisites. Just that saying Copiel is a black guy so he should be great to do a hip-hop cover is questionable. I don't think black Americans are automatically in the hip-hop club either (hip hop is a black American culture does not equal black Americans are part of hip hop, anymore than I am a golfer since I'm white), but a French black man is even more removed than that.

If the discussion here was that a white person shouldn't be drawing a hip hop cover based on their skin colour, I would call it ridiculous (unless they had a Facebook page of confederate flags or something). I don't know their connection to the medium. But the question brought up was about Marvel as a company being disproportionately white capitalising on a music form that is at its root black. That's kind of hincky. Where's the line? Hard to say. DC had selfie month, this is about equally capitalist in intent, not racist, but I have no question of why Brothers' Tumblr post went viral.

[square]

Quoted for truth. It's not exactly surprising to see this perfectly understandable comment misinterpreted though. People tend to enter these discussion determined not to get it.

Thanks. As a hetro/white/cis-gendered guy, I'm used to being shouted down for speaking my opinion on such matters. I'm on the side of humans, not my social group. But the Internet thinks in binary terms most of the time, rather than in terms of what was actually said. So thanks.

[shgs]

As a non black person(multi race) and fan of hip hop for most of my life, I always thought that the point of hip hop was self expression and speaking your mind regardless of race, gender, sexuality, or any other pointless terms we use to divide ourselves. Maybe it's time we just stopped using terms of color especially. We are all people, shouldn't we just look at each other as that? Should our race dictate what we're supposed to like? Hell No! maybe I look at people different though since I don't identify with any single race and generally look at people as individuals.

The flaw with this reasoning is that if you refuse to differentiate between the experience of being black and of being white (or between any other cultural or societal differences) you implicitly deny there is any difference, which in turn denies the existence of inequality. The problem is not in labeling differences, it is in their existence in the first place; but you cannot achieve equality simply by expunging inequality from language.

I had no idea Copiel was black, much less from France, but Google set me straight as to why he was brought up in this thread. I'm no expert in this, but I think the experience of blacks in the world is somewhat removed from that of blacks in the States. While nobody would complain if he did a cover, I doubt he has a deep relationship with hip hop simply for being black, anymore than the average Japanese in Shibuya.

I agree with everything you've said in this thread, except (and I'm not expert on it or anything but) there is a thriving hip hop scene in France. I think it is very much a part of black identity there.

So I guess when the manga cover variants come out we're gonna here garbage about Marvel appropriatising(???) Japanese culture for their own profit while not giving positions to people of Japanese descent.

:/

So on the one had we have an American comic book company celebrating the work of their Japanese peers by asking some Japanese comic artists to provide variant covers, and on the other you have an American comic book company capitalising on a genre of music that is intrinsically linked to black American culture, that for the most part has nothing to do with comics (and they have even less to do with it), by having artists who are nothing to do with hip hop, and of whom only a few (so far) are black Americans, draw covers which in the vast majority of cases replace black rappers with white super heroes.

Spot the difference?

[Baby_Hater666]

image.jpg

Yup nothing uncomfortable about this picture....