Mini comic book history and cultural significance

¶ … Brainstorming Ideas

Track B: Comic Book - Mini Comic Book Final Assignment

List out 1 to 3 central "theme" ideas here, again remember this is a draft version so rough ideas are fine.

Considering the overwhelming popularity of AMC's The Walking Dead television series, which uses writer Robert Kirkman's and artist Tony Moore's eponymous comic book as its primary source material, I would like to create a parody version to highlight the racial discrepancies in character development found within both the show and the comics. The basic theme of my comic book would be the racial sanitization of mass media marketed primarily to White audiences, and how artists, writers and other creative contributors can subtly alter their work to cast minority characters as insignificant, underdeveloped, or supplementary to the overall narrative.

While The Walking Dead TV series and comic books have enjoyed immense success, both with the subgenre of comic book readers and the mass market of major network television, many media critics have noticed a disturbing trend in which African-American characters are relegated to entirely irrelevant positions. This inherent bias may not have been so easily recognized for traditional entertainment sources, which remain primarily steeped in the world of White Americans, but the fact that The Walking Dead is set primarily in Atlanta, Georgia and its rural outskirts, the dearth of African-American characters is alarmingly apparent. Atlanta is home to a rich history of African-American cultural heritage, and today millions of residents there are of minority status, so ostensibly the cast of The Walking Dead should consist of primarily Black characters. Instead, only one character on the show is African-American, and the stereotypically named "T-Dogg" has little impact on the narrative, while his speaking scenes are few and far between. For my assignment, I would like to utilize my newly acquired visual literacy skills to create an alternative version of The Walking Dead in comic book form, a version which ignores the corporatization of creativity to accurately portray the story as it would likely occur.

2. What are your TWO Course Content Topic Areas?

Pick out at least two Course Content Topic Areas, again remember this is a draft version so it is okay not to know exactly what areas you want to use and you can rough out more than two at this time.

In accordance with the theme stated above, I would most likely choose to integrate the following Course Content Topic Areas within my overall assignment:

Media Representations and Stereotypes

Cinematic Narrative (Text) and Cinematic Subtext

The concept of Media Representations and Stereotypes is integral to my overall theme because The Walking Dead could easily include more African-American characters, thus enhancing the overall sense of realism which is the story's aim, but both the comic's authors and the TV series' producers choose to present the narrative through an exclusively Anglo perspective.

One glaring example of Media Representations and Stereotypes that has only been recently introduced to the TV side of The Walking Dead, but has been a longtime trope of the comic book rendition, is the character of Michonne. Appearing as a mysterious Black woman who speaks little and radiates anger, all the time wielding an incongruous samurai sword to dispatch encroaching zombies, Michonne is ostensibly positioned as an enigmatic figure designed to inspire the audience's curiosity. Instead, her wooden dialogue and muddied motives make her merely another incarnation of what has been termed "the magical Negro," a particularly lazy literacy device embodied by Jim in Huckleberry Finn and Bagger Vance in the Will Smith movie of the same name.

The discordance between the textual Cinematic Narrative of The Walking Dead, and the more subtly detected Cinematic Subtext is particularly jarring once it has become readily apparent, and a close reading of the original comic book material indicates a variety of racially charged subtexts simmering beneath the surface. African-American characters are mistrusted by their peers, appear most abundantly during scenes set in a state prison institution, and are deployed almost interchangeably by the writers and artists in lieu of genuine character development. By recreating the world of a zombie-ridden Atlanta through a more culturally objective lens, the opportunities to skewer these vapid rhetorical devices would prove plentiful.

3. What would be a possible "take-home" message for your comic book (as in what do you want the readers to take out of your comic book after they finish visiting it)?

If you were going to tell the story behind this take-home message in a sentence or two, how would you tell it?

I would hope that after comparing my repurposed version of The Walking Dead to the original print and television material, readers would form a better understanding of how preconceived bias can irrevocably alter the creative vision. Any creator is naturally influenced by his or her own worldview and personal philosophy, and combined with external pressures from TV networks, financiers, or even the audience, an unintentionally distorted view of the world can easily take shape. The ultimate significance of The Walking Dead and its insistence on focusing solely on its White characters is debatable, but I can only hope that an alternative version of the comic book which more accurately portrays the situation will inform this debate.

4. What type of comic book format will you be working with? Online digital, hand drawn, computer software, other?

Why are you going to use this specific format (think about how they will fit into your comic book narrative AND comic book design)?