When I was a kid, I didn’t live close enough to a comic book shop to get there on my bike. My parents would have to take me to Fair Oaks Mall in Fairfax, Va., and I’d get my comics off the old spinner racks at Waldenbooks. As the years went on and specialty comic shops opened, my friends and I had a comic book ritual…
In case you didn’t get the memo, Comic-Con isn’t just for cosplay—or even just for comics. Celebs and fans of all types of pop-cultural phenomenons descended on the convention’s West Coast event in San Diego, Ca. from July 19-22 to attend panels, rubs elbows with their faves, and, or course, dress up to celebrate all…
“I know white superheroes aren’t your thing,” The Root’s resident Suge Knight, also known as our deputy managing editor, Yesha Callahan, said to me as she tasked me with writing about Deadpool 2. No, white superheroes aren’t my thing, but Ryan Reynolds is my thing, and even more so, Zazie Beetz as freakin’ Domino!
Comic books have struggled with diversity since Famous Funnies was released in the United States in 1933. However, the past few years have finally seen some cracks in the proverbial glass ceiling as black culture has permeated into the mainstream of the comic book universe. From Marvel’s reimagining of classic rap…
Last week, Marvel unveiled a line of Black Panther character posters that snatched the souls out of every living melanated human being. Black Panther (1966) was the first black superhero in mainstream American comics, later followed by characters such as Luke Cage (1972) and Black Lightning (1977).
As colorful as comics are, they have not always been kind to people of color. Even though Stan Lee and Marvel were bold enough to create the X-Men in reaction to the civil rights movement, not everyone else was so enlightened or has been so enlightened since (see #DonaldforSpiderman).
