The Four Color Media Monitor

Complex spoke about the influence famous singer Janet Jackson appears to have had on the creations of Aza Comics. This is, however, something involving multiculturalism, and not only that, it even ridiculously says:

With their one-dimensional female characters, comics didn’t provide the inspiration Truesdale needed, but music did. As she sat down to create, she found herself listening to Janet Jackson’s 1989 album Rhythm Nation. And before she knew it, the main character of her first comic novel, The Keepers: Origins, was a lot like... Janet Jackson. The idea of Jackson as a fierce warrior at the helm of an entire universe is not hard to fathom considering she has been the queen of pop music for decades, spawning progeny from Britney Spears to Aaliyah to Teyana Taylor. On Sunday at the 2018 Billboard Music Awards, the 52-year-old legend will finally get her due when she receives the Icon Award.

What do they mean by one-dimensionals? And why don't men count? It's not like there aren't menfolk in any comics who couldn't rate as 1-D, depending on the quality of writing.

Truesdale says she was around 7 years old when she took a trip to a comic book store with her dad and bought a copy of Wonder Woman. She fell in love with the genre, and specifically with female-centric stories. But she lost interest as she got older and got the sense that many of the women presented were based on tropes and were created with the male gaze in mind. When she picked the comics back up as a young adult, she realized that not much had changed. So she started doing her research.

Funny they should say that, because from the art samples they've provided, you could easily figure even the Aza creations have their appeal to the male gaze.

“A lot of women who were already into comics, they told me that Wonder Woman was somebody who they liked, and it was because she was a character that stood by herself. She was three dimensional, she had a whole backstory, and she existed as her own entity—she wasn’t a spinoff of any other male character; she was a complete, self-autonomous character.”

Now isn't that something! WW is 3-D. But what about the Black Canary, Vixen, Donna Troy or several of Marvel's own superheroines from better days? The real Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers, and Jean Grey, Dazzler, Scarlet Witch, Wasp, to name but some more. If you know where to look, you're bound to find plenty, even in non-superhero comics. Citing WW as an example is much too easy, and proves we still have people around who don't search deep enough, which is a shame.

But at least she's created her own casts of characters rather than go the cheapie route like Marvel did in the past years, and that's what should count. So I'll wish her luck in getting her books sold, which she says in the article are more like novels. Maybe that's the most ideal way to sell them in major bookstores too!

Labels: indie publishers, msm propaganda, politics