The Four Color Media Monitor

NY1 Spectrum News interviewed a Latino artist who's created comics focusing on characters of that background, which is fine in itself, but this item suggests merit's not a top priority:

Julio Anta is a comic book and graphic novel artist. The Cuban-Colombian American writer looks to uplift the Latino community through his works.

“I want Latinos to see themselves to see authentic portrayals of themselves, to see aspirational and positive portrayals of themselves,” Anta said.

Anta finds inspiration through his Latino culture. He also incorporates social issues faced by the Hispanic community into his writings. One of his latest works is called “Frontera.”

“It’s a supernatural borderland adventure story about a teenager named Mateo, who is on his journey back home to the United States across the Sonoran Desert. And along the way, he meets the ghost of a migrant that died half a century ago. And now this ghost named Guillermo, a teenager himself when he passed away, is helping Mateo on his journey to get back home to Arizona,” he said.

Anta has also written for comic book franchises including Marvel and DC. He hopes his works brings more Latino representation not only in the pages, but in the entire industry of comic books and graphic novels.

For heaven's sake, there's got to be plenty of that for years now, and what's it done for sales for mainstream superhero fare? Zip. Well, certainly if all the writers care about is shoehorning a new character into an established costume first worn by white protagonists. That trick hasn't worked in a long time, because merit's not the name of the game. All they really care about in the end is the costume, not the character.

Good luck with his own GNs, and positive images are definitely a good idea, but this obsession with "representation" in the mainstream has long become boring, and hasn't helped it one bit, based on how politcized it's actually been, with no actual story merit.

Labels: indie publishers, msm propaganda, politics