SwanShadow Thinks Out Loud

In the nascent days of my Common Elements commission theme — before I had any clue it would take on a life of its own, spawning well over 100 commissions to date — the connections between the featured characters were often simple and rather obvious. (Sometimes they still are.) And yet, even in those early concepts, my subconscious frequently bubbled up a more subtle subtext.

That’s certainly true in Common Elements #3, which I commissioned on New Year’s Day 2005. Artist Jeffrey Moy — probably best known for his work on DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes — served up this pinup-style piece pairing Luke Cage, Power Man with Karen Starr, Power Girl.

The superficial common element between Luke and Karen is pretty clear — they both have the word “Power” in their fighting identities. (Cage long ago abandoned the “Power Man” handle — as well as the flashy outfit — and now simply goes by his own name.) The pair, however, share another commonality, in that they represent caricatures of masculinity (Cage with the open shirt displaying his bulging musculature — a shirt which had the unusual knack of getting shredded off his torso in practically every issue) and femininity (artist Wally Wood famously drew Power Girl’s bust increasingly larger over a several-issue run, until an editor finally took notice and ordered him to quit). Granted, most superheroes — male or female — can be viewed as hypersexualized gender stereotypes, but Cage and Power Girl were created with those stereotypes in mind more flagrantly than others.

None of this has anything to do with the reason why this Common Elements piece marks a milestone in my collecting career. It’s important because it’s the first tangible evidence of my friendship with fellow collector Damon Owens.

After all these years, I don’t recall exactly how Damon and I began corresponding. (Damon probably does, and I’m sure he’ll correct any errant reportage that follows.) I think he might have sent me a note about my Bob McLeod Black Panther commission when I posted it to my Comic Art Fans gallery. Whatever the impetus, it became immediately clear that the two of us shared much in common. (There’s that Common Elements thing again.) Our casual correspondence evolved into a virtual friendship (we’ve never met in person; Damon lives in suburban Houston, while I’m in San Francisco) that persists to this day.

Without question, part of the connection between Damon and me is that we are both African American. That may not sound like a big deal to you, but I can tell you from a long lifetime of experience that black folks (and racial minorities of all shades, for that matter) have historically been underrepresented in science fiction and fantasy fandom in general, and in comic book fandom — okay, let’s call it geekdom — in particular. Thankfully, that’s changing — I see a lot more faces from a lot more races at comics conventions these days than I did in the 1970s, when I would often be the only person of color I encountered at a Star Trek or science fiction con. (Not that I encountered myself. You know what I mean.) But there’s still an element of “hey! another one of us!” when I run into someone of my background who’s into comics; someone who understands firsthand some of my frustrations with the mainstream comics industry’s embarrassing and often downright offensive depictions of black characters (or its failure to depict such characters at all), as well as its corresponding ill-treatment of many talented African American comics artists and writers.

Damon also shares my predilection for theme commissions, though he was in the game long before I was. His collection still contains many incredible pieces that, when I look at them, make me want to pitch all of my portfolios into the nearest Dumpster. (I lie down with a cool compress on my forehead until the temptation subsides.) Damon’s signature theme features The Brotherhood, an Avengers- or Justice League-style assemblage of legendary black superheroes from across the comics industry. He’s gotten some of the top talent in comics to draw scenarios starring these characters, and the results inspire in me both awe and envy.

From the beginning of our friendship, Damon has proven an invaluable resource for artist recommendations. It was Damon who tipped me to Jeff Moy’s availability for commissions, resulting in the piece shown above. This would be the first, but hardly the last, time that my interaction with an artist resulted from an introduction by Damon. In fact, as I’ve been composing this post, I’ve received two emails from an artist who’s working on my latest Common Elements addition — an artist to whom I was referred by the redoubtable Mr. Owens.

Last evening, I attended a screening of the documentary film White Scripts and Black Supermen: Black Masculinities in Comic Books, at the Museum of the African Diaspora here in San Francisco. Following the screening, the filmmaker, Dr. Jonathan Gayles of Georgia State University in Atlanta, joined us via Skype for a discussion about the film and the issues contained therein. While I didn’t agree with every point made in the film — you know me; do I ever agree 100% with anyone about anything? — I found it a fascinating and enlightening (if occasionally frustrating) conversation. I especially appreciated Gayles’s interviews with the late Dwayne McDuffie, a veteran comics writer who is even better remembered as the story editor and producer of the popular Justice League animated series, as well as such figures as comics historian Bill Foster and writer/producer Reginald Hudlin.

Many of the documentary’s participants related accounts that mirrored my own childhood experiences, in which finding superheroes who looked like ourselves proved challenging. Among my most vivid memories as a young comics reader is the day I found the first issue of Luke Cage, Hero for Hire on a supermarket rack in Kokomo, Indiana, and for the first time saw an African American hero on the cover of a comic with his name in the title. I remember equally well the series of early-1970s issues of Jungle Action featuring the Black Panther, and the run of Captain America and the Falcon — the latter being Marvel’s very first African American hero (the Panther, who preceded the Falcon by a few years, was African, but not American) — during that same time period. These comics and characters weren’t perfect — in those days, their adventures were being scripted almost entirely by writers of the Caucasian persuasion, whose attempts at “black” dialogue often sank to ludicrous depths — but they were steps in a fresh new direction. By the late ’70s, Storm was a major character in X-Men, long-running supporting character Bill Foster (no relation to the comics historian) had taken up the mantle of Goliath, and even the ultraconservative DC had introduced John Stewart (a.k.a. “the black Green Lantern”) and Black Lightning. Again, it wasn’t a lot, but it was something.

Diversity remains a problem in comics, not just for black fans, but for Latino and Asian readers as well. The list of prominent non-Caucasian superheroes remains a short one, and the list of such characters that aren’t stereotypical in some way is shorter yet. (One of my favorite recent additions to the superhero pantheon is DC’s Mister Terrific, the rare black comics hero whose race is almost entirely incidental to the nature of his presentation.) And that’s not even considering the depiction of female characters, or gay characters of either gender, in mainstream comics. The industry still has a long way to go toward realistic, genuinely human portrayals of characters who aren’t white males (or, as in the case of Superman, space aliens who conveniently happen to look like Caucasian human males). As a wise person once observed, the wheels of progress grind slowly. But grind they must.

I look forward to the day when all comics readers — people of every ethnicity, gender, background, and orientation — can open a comic book (or view a digital comic, as the future of the industry lies in that direction) and see heroes and heroines with whom they can fully identify, and in whom they can see the materialization of their own fantasy selves. Won’t that be awesome?

After all, our most precious Common Element is our humanity.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

I didn’t set out to be a theme commission guy.

In fact, at the beginning of my art collecting journey, I didn’t know that there was such a thing as a commission theme. Much less did I aspire to have one.

But nearly a decade down the road, my reputation in the insular ranks of comic art collectors is firmly cemented. I’m the Common Elements Guy. And, to a lesser extent, the Bombshells! Guy. Or, to that significant segment of collectors who disdain commissioned art (and those who collect it) in favor of published pages, one of “those guys.” I’m among a tiny minority within the ranks whose collection is defined by commissions focused on one or more unifying themes.

And it all started with this drawing.

On December 1, 2004 (I don’t recall the date from memory, but I keep records of this sort of thing), I commissioned the above piece from artist Michael Dooney, who’s done a boatload of work for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Mike had recently done a pair of drawings for me — pinups of Ms. Marvel and Saturn Girl — and I was madly in love with his style. (I still am. I’ve commissioned Mike more times than any other pencil artist.) For my third Dooney commission, I decided to ask for a depiction of Spider-Woman — more specifically, the original, who wore a red-and-yellow costume and whose real name was Jessica Drew. (That’s her at the top of the picture.)

Jessica came into being in the late 1970s, when Marvel went through a frenzied burst of creating distaff versions of many of their established heroes. Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk evolved from that same gender-equity soup. Marvel’s idea was to lock up trademarks on all of the variations, so that the Distinguished Competition didn’t steal their thunder by coming out with characters using those names. (The two companies had squabbled over Marvel’s creation of Wonder Man when DC already had Wonder Woman, and DC’s release of Power Girl not long after Marvel debuted Power Man.) I always thought Spider-Woman was an interesting heroine, and figured Dooney would do something visually appealing with her.

The exact thought process is now lost to the mists of history, but at some point before I told Mike what character he was drawing, I said to myself, “Wouldn’t it be cool to have both Spider-Women together?” Because, you see, Marvel also had a second Spider-Woman, who came along in the mid-’80s after the first Spider-Woman’s brief blaze of glory had fizzled out. (Jessica was killed off after a 50-issue run in her own title, and although resurrected shortly afterward, was pretty effectively out of the spotlight.) Spider-Woman II’s debut coincided with Spider-Man’s much-publicized switch from his familiar red-and-blue Spandex to an eye-catching black-and-white ensemble (which eventually became a character in itself, the supervillain Venom). The second Spider-Woman’s garb matched the Web-Slinger’s snazzy new togs, which made for a handy promotional gimmick. (Fortunately, her costume was merely a costume, not a symbiotic alien creature in disguise.) Anyway, I thought the contrast between the two Spider-Women’s uniforms and hair — Jessica has black tresses, while Spider-Woman II (Julia Carpenter) is a redhead — would make for a striking image.

At first, Dooney resisted the idea. “I don’t usually do two-character commissions,” he told me via email. Whatever I said in response, however, must have been persuasive — I’m sure that no offer of a firstborn child was involved — because in the end, Mike agreed to draw the two Spider-Women. (If I remember correctly, Mike surrendered to my pleading by saying, “Well, it’s the holidays.”) I had the pencil drawing in hand less than three weeks later. The art was finished in ink by Joe Rubinstein in 2005, as you can see below.

When I saw what Mike had done with Jessica and Julia, the proverbial light bulb flashed on in my head. Wouldn’t it be cool to have several pieces pairing characters that are somehow related, but yet are distinct from each other? I immediately started brainstorming. As the idea took shape, I quickly got away from the Spider-Woman template — essentially, two iterations of the same basic character concept, created by the same publisher (even though Jessica and Julia’s powers are quite different, they’re both Spider-Woman) —  and honed in more specifically on what became the Common Elements theme: characters, usually unconnected to each other in continuity (unlike the two Spider-Women), but who share some trivial point of intersection, whether a similarity in name, costuming, or superpowers, or something more obscure.

From this humble origin grew the legend.

Michael Dooney’s “Spider-Women” launched my signature theme. It’s a bit ironic that this piece should be designated as “Common Elements #1,” given that its subject doesn’t precisely fit the now-cast-in-concrete definition of a Common Elements commission. But it’s okay, I think, for the concept to evolve somewhat away from its starting point. That doesn’t change the fact that, had it not been for this artwork, I might never have come up with the theme that has so thoroughly defined me as a collector.

Which brings me to the underlying message of Common Elements. Much of the beauty of life is the balance between contrast and connection. In Eastern philosophical tradition, this balance is typified by the yin-yang symbol — contrasting elements that together form a whole. It’s negative and positive, masculine and feminine, ebony and ivory — living together in perfect harmony. Common Elements is all about finding linkage where no linkage exists, and making connections in unexpected and unorthodox ways, so that things that would not ordinarily appear together come together to create beauty that would be incomplete without one or the other.

I wasn’t thinking of this consciously when I hit on the idea of Common Elements, but I believe this is part of why this theme resonates with me on such a visceral level:

I am a biracial individual. Although my adoptive parents were both African-American, and I thus was raised in a culturally black home environment (whatever that suggests), my biological parents were of different ethnicities. My genetic mother was of European descent; my genetic father, of African descent. As odd as it may sound to people of my daughter’s generation, at the time I was conceived it was illegal in most parts of this country for my biological parents to marry. I have no idea what brought my progenitors together — everything I know about them comes from a single typewritten paragraph of general description about each — but this I do know: Had they not found their way to one another, despite their differences and the then-prevailing environment hostile to those differences — I would not exist. And yet, the fact of my existence proves that, different though they were, my birth parents shared a common biology. Both their differences and their commonalities make me, me — at least, on a physical level.

When I commission a new Common Elements artwork, I’m bringing together artists and characters that, in most cases, have never been united before. I’m defining a connection between heroes and/or heroines who have, in most cases, never been connected before. I’m envisioning something that no one else has seen, and finding a means of bringing it to reality.

I think that’s kind of cool.

In a certain way, that’s kind of like who I am. Which in itself is kind of cool, too.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.