Detail of comic book cover from Black Panther #9

Black Panther and Diversity

I am reading Marvel’s current run comic book Black Panther. Black Panther’s writer is Ta-Nehisi Coates (pronunciation: Tah-Nuh-Hah-See Coat-s), winner of the National Book Award for “Between the World and Me”. Mr. Coates is the reason I am reading the comic book, the first I have purchased and read during its print run.

Like a lot of comic books, there is a letter section at the back. I enjoy letter writing, but have had no reason to write beyond “I like your comic book.” In April, that changed. First, a Marvel VP decried diversity as the reason for sales declines. Then, the letters in Black Panther issue #12 contained a long diatribe opposed to the LGBTQ issues and themes in Mr. Coates’ Black Panther.

I have no idea if my letter to Mr. Coates will be chosen for print.  So here are my thoughts on Black Panther and diversity. […]

Movie theatre marquee advertising The Hateful Eight

Mass Infantilization Plaguing Movies #TBT

A. O. Scott, the venerable, initialed movie reviewer and societal critic for the New York Times, wrote an article a few years ago on a disease he saw plaguing movies entitled “Open Wide: Spoon-fed Cinema.” Scott’s diagnosis: “Forty is the new dead” for cinema as mass infantilization engenders profit at the box office, while stealing profit from culture and the soul. I have thought a lot about this article off and on since its 2009 printing. Initially, I agreed Scott’s diagnosis was a chronic condition of Hollywood. Now I believe it to be a seasonal affliction. […]