Jacques Lacan Hearts...Rogue?

Since we've been talking about "the gaze" and "othering" and the mirror stage in my YA Lit class, which just wrapped up today and which featured several prominent YA graphic novels, I found this explication from Comixology both timely and fun.

NYU Library *Marvels and Monsters* Exhibit focuses on Asians in Comics

From the link:

"Marvels and Monsters:
Unmasking Asian Images in U.S. Comics, 1942-1986
May 26 - August 19, 2011

Over four decades that included some of the most turbulent times in our nation's history, science fiction author and cultural studies scholar William F. Wu painstakingly gathered an archive of comics distinguished not only by its size and reach, but by its scope: It is perhaps the world's only, and certainly the largest, collection of comic books featuring images of Asians and Asian Americans...."

Take THAT, Tolerance!: Muslim-Centric Cartoon "The 99" Attacked in "NY Post"

According to ICV2.com, "Some of the same folks that brought about the 9/11 Mosque controversy are sharpening their Islamophobic axes to attack The 99, a comic book-based cartoon from Teshkeel Media that features 99 heroes, who embody the 99 attributes of Allah."

The 99 started as a comic, of course, and is also designed to help people understand that Islam is not all about crashing aircraft into buildings and hyper-violence, but, I guess if Westerners understood that, it'd make it that much harder to "kill them back."

Ah, the political dangers of peeling back the layers of othering to reveal the best of all humanities.....

I'm going to go cry now......

Minority Representations in Comics

This video is a good resource about how minstrel figures, picanninies, yellow-skinned demons and other non-white characters have been represented in comics.

Once I teach another comic course, I'll probably use this video. I often ask students to visit the Grand Comic Book Database and look at minority representations in old covers of Captain America, Luke Cage, Tarzan, etc. It's an eye-opening experience.