Previously On Comics: Arresting Developments

I’d like to tell you that this week we only have fluffy, happy, good news and a basket of puppies for every reader, but unfortunately this is Comics. So instead, you’ll be getting the standard, “abandon hope all ye who enter here” treatment.

The week started with Stan Lee’s business manager and partner Keya Morgan being arrested under suspicion of filing a fake police report. A later update from The Associated Press announced that police are in fact investigating the possible elder abuse of Stan Lee. This is not Lee’s first incident with the police this year as he filed a lawsuit in April claiming that people close to him were duping him out of tremendous amounts of money and another in May against his former company POW! Entertainment claiming they had conspired to steal his identity.

Sean Gordon Murphy became giddy over news that Batman:White Knight will be joining DC’s Black Label imprint (for classy stories aimed at mature readers!) and will therefore feature the first nude Harley/Joker ‘love’ scene.

https://twitter.com/Sean_G_Murphy/status/1006603528457146368

When this wasn’t received with quite the level of enthusiasm he expected Murphy returned to twitter to further discuss the matter, laying out his intentions for the scene to be tasteful and conservative with Harley and Joker being ‘equally’ naked.

This was quickly followed by another stunning display of Men Missing The Point when our collective attention fell to a particularly racist and highly sexualised depiction of Tiger Lily in J. Scott Campbell’s 2014 Fairytale Fantasies calendar. Campbell argued that Tiger Lily was frequently depicted bound, citing Disney’s Peter Pan as evidence and not considering for a even second that this was just as racist in 1953 as it is now.

The clouds parted somewhat on Wednesday when it was announces that Joye Murchison Kelly and Dorothy Roubicek Woolfolk are the joint winners of the 2018 Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. Kelly and Woolfolk are the first women to win the award in its 13 year history and were selected unanimously by a panel of 6. While Woolfolk is sadly no longer with us, Kelly will be on hand to collect the award at San Diego Comic Con 2018.

Unfortunately nothing gold can stay and on Friday, Rob Rogers, the editorial cartoonist at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced that he had been fired.

This came after some weeks of precarity and only a few days after the absence of his political cartoons was noted by journalist Jake Tapper. Rogers posted this cartoon to his twitter account the day prior to his firing and has since written an editorial for The New York Times in which he states in no uncertain terms that he was fired for making fun of Trump. Rogers, unwilling to concede, continues to post political cartoons on his website and his twitter account and intends to be at his drawing table every day of the current presidency.

Quick hits!

  • Jay Edidin has collected his tweets regarding Dark Horse’s less than queer-friendly policies.
  • Garfield will be celebrating his 40th birthday this year with the release of Age Happens: Garfield Hits the Big 4-0 by Jim Davis. The book will feature a collection of classic strips, guest cartoonists, fan art, and a foreword by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
  • Ethan Van Sciver confirmed he is not longer employed by DC and will henceforth be focusing his efforts on trying to get rich, Normally this is where I would link to his twitter but I don’t want to.
  • Nerdist released a statement following Chloe Dykstra’s allegations of abuse against their former owner and CEO Chris Hardwick and concurrently removed all mention of him from their platform.
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