The Black Panel at Comic-Con: 'African American culture is American culture'

The Guardian ^

[nickcarraway]

Of the hundreds of panels available at Comic-Con, which drew to a close on Sunday, none are more respected than the long-running Black Panel, hosted by the comic book creator and Milestone Media co-founder Michael Davis. Unlike most of the other panels at Comic-Con, the Black Panel has nothing to sell, and features guests who also have nothing to promote. Instead, it is a discussion between audience and panel members about black culture, a way for prominent figures in African American entertainment to reach out to those who hope to emulate their paths to success.

Davis started the panel in 1998, five years after he founded Milestone, a comic book entertainment company responsible for some of the most successful black superheroes of the 90s, like Icon, a 300-year-old alien whose first earthly encounter was with a slave woman in the American south, and Static, about a high school teenager who receives superpowers after being mistakenly caught up in a gang war.

Today, the Black Panel is an institution. It is given a 90-minute slot at Comic-Con, a rare honour for any panel, and the panel alum have included RZA, Shaquille O'Neal and Nichelle Nichols, aka Lieutenant Uhura of Star Trek. This year, the Black Panel played host to Ne-Yo, J August Richards, Kevin Grevioux, Cree Summer, Erika Alexander, Tatiana El Khouri and Orlando Jones.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Obama Thanks Muslims for ‘Building the Very Fabric of Our Nation’
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[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

COL’ got to be! Y’know? Shiiit.

[albie]

Does it include discussions on the “knock out game”?

[Bigg Red]

Okay, we need to devote some serious attention to a discussion that occurs at a convention that is devoted to comic books?

[MasterGunner01]

Black superheroes? That's an idea that is really funny. There's no fun in being a superhero when you can be a sports thug hero, a gangster rap thug hero, a pimp thug hero, a drug thug hero, a drive-by shooter thug hero. More realistic heroes for the kid's in the neighborhood to steal from their local newsstand.

[reed13k]

Why not we get much more serious attention to football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, golf, ad nauseum... why not a form of literature that actually has developed and grown through the years?

Did you know ‘MAUS’ won the pulitzer prize through a graphical presentation of plight of those who suffered in the Holocaust?

Did you know that they are looking at turning the ‘Forgotten Man’ into a graphic novel?

Don’t you agree that every venue that we can present conservative values we should? If we aren’t there the libs will be.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Black culture as expressed today would starve, self destruct and vanish without liberal support.

[MrB]

Urban culture was created as a FOIL to American/Western Culture by those who seek to destroy it.

[MrB]

I would further define “liberal support” as “robbing from traditional Western culture to prop up ‘Black’ culture”.

[a fool in paradise]

Davis started the panel in 1998, five years after he founded Milestone, a comic book entertainment company responsible for some of the most successful black superheroes of the 90s, like Icon, a 300-year-old alien whose first earthly encounter was with a slave woman in the American south

So blacks are aliens? Or aliens are black people?

I know Louis Farrakhan and Sun Ra spouted that kind of mumbo jumbo but if it's an alien, it isn't human and certainly isn't of African origin.

"black superhero" indeed.

[a fool in paradise]

Shaq and RZA (past panelists) have no ties to comic books (unless you want to bring up that HORRIBLE Space Jam “cartoon”).

[a fool in paradise]

"When I first started the panel," says Davis, during an interview that took 40 minutes to get to because he kept being mobbed by passersby, "There was a panel here at Comic-Con called Blacks in Comics, and that was a bitch fest, people saying 'Oh, Marvel won't hire me …' So I created the Black Panel, which is positive. We ask, 'How do we create our own heroes?'

I see more positivity in a panel on black cartoonists than this race focused "For Us, By Us" focus group.

Cartoonists like George Herriman (Krazy Kat) and Kyle Baker have more to say to the world at large than a bunch of thuggish breakdancer, slaves, and "gang" stereotypes trotted out one more time.

[a fool in paradise]

"I want to reach young people of colour, and let them know they can do what I do. I don't play basketball and I'm not a rapper, though I can sing karaoke. There's 16-year-old kids out there who love comics who have no idea how to get into the field. I want to let them know that this is possible. I want to tell them to know these people on the Black Panel, stay in touch with these people."

Tip number one, learn to draw.

Tip number two, learn to write or find someone who can.

Tip number three, realize that YOUR life experiences don't come into play when you are dealing with offworld adventures.

Billy Dee Williams brought this up in defiance of those in the audience at another convention asking about how his background prepared him to play Lando in the Star Wars franchise. He said that HIS inspiration in that role was Errol Flynn and the other roguish pirates. Lando was NOT from Earth, let alone Chicago.

[a fool in paradise]

Right now, Davis is considering future guests. "One day I'm going to do a black panel with nobody on the panel except white people who have huge influence on African American culture, like Rick Rubin, Quentin Tarantino, Bill Clinton, who was in my mind the first black president. People who appreciate and respect black culture."

I thought these people had an influence on American culture. I guess I don't live in "Black America", I live in the United States of America.

Martin Luther King Jr. denounced the race hustlers who wanted a black separatist America.

[Resolute Conservative]

I refuse to use the term African American. I have known several white South Africans who muse at the term since they are not allowed to claim it. I always point out that that term must include Egyptians, Libyans , and the like as well, not just black people.

[PeteePie]

The Black Panel at Comic-Con: 'African American culture is American culture'

Fixed it

[reed13k]

No clue who RZA is, but Shaq is known as an avid collector (superman focus) and as I recall contributed capital to Malibu or another black start-up in the industry when he was still a ballplayer.

In addition on the animation front beyond Space Jam,
he played John Henry Irons/Steel in Steel (DC animation)

He also voiced himself in the animated series Static Shock, Johnny Bravo, and Uncle Grandpa, and in The Lego Movie.

Oh, and Shaq supported Christie in his reelection bid in Jersey (which at least wasn’t a dem)

[a fool in paradise]

I think RZA is from the Wu-Tang Clan rapper group.

[reed13k]

yeah no clue how he fits in...