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You're a better man than me, sir.
http://kennykeil.tumblr.com/post/124168579114/on-marvels-hip-hop-variant-covers-me-and-bigger
On Marvel’s Hip Hop Variant Covers, Me, and Bigger Things
Is there anything more exhilarating/terrifying than waking up to a bunch of Twitter notifications? My mentions have been lit up like a Christmas tree all week with people alerting me to Marvel’s newest line of variant covers: Get this, it’s superheroes meets classic hip hop album art. Definitely relevant to my interests.
In fact it’s so relevant to my interests that I actually drew this very thing over 5 years ago. Let’s go back, way back, back into time…
It was early 2010. We’d just had a baby so I was spending a lot of time at home not sleeping. One night, when I probably should have been sleeping, I decided to bust out the Wacom and draw a picture of Thor. As one does. The drawing, which I was trying to do in a traditional superhero pin-up style for reasons I can’t recall, wasn’t coming together. I was mad at my Wacom, mad at myself, and mad at Thor. With his dumb looking, hard to draw helmet wearing ass. Meanwhile, NWA “Straight Outta Compton” was playing on my iTunes. Except in my head it sounded like, “Straight Outta Asgard”.
This is what Oprah would call an Aha! Moment™. I deleted all the artwork. I resized the canvas. I giggled madly as I re-envisioned Thor, Loki, and The Warriors 3 as NWA (Norse With Attitude). Sparks were flying out of my head and shit while I drew, fam. I had achieved The Glow. By the time the Thor piece was done I’d already conceptualized the next 5. Within a week, I had drawn like a dozen of these damn things. Couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop.
I wasn’t even thinking about what do do with them. I definitely wasn’t thinking of ways to monetize them. It was a true homage to my favorite mediums: It was music, it was comics, it was comedy. It was one of the purest expressions of self I’d ever achieved with the pen. It was me.
But it turned out it wasn’t just me. A music blog took notice (Shout out to Music Nerdery!). And then another, and another, and next thing I knew these mash-ups were on Okayplayer, Ego Trip, Smoking Section, Hip Hop is Read, Complex, a couple of French ones autocorrect isn’t letting me spell out, and more. ?uestlove retweeted them shits, yo. Combat Jack called me. The Comic Rap Nerd Bat-Signal had been lit. Eventually comic sites like Comics Alliance jumped on board, too. Here I was, no web presence, no PR connects, just a dude drawing inside jokes to himself and posting them on the internet. And they were blowing up. To this day I love seeing people bug out when they discover these things. It’s like magic. Without these drawings there would be no Rhyme Travelers. I wouldn’t be in MAD Magazine. I might not be art directing and illustrating a bunch of dope projects with Big Boi right now. I would definitely have never gotten onstage at Comic Con and talked to Del the Funky Homosapien about the Ninja Turtles. I wouldn’t have made a ton of cool new friends. So, all in all? Not bad for some jpegs.
The reason for this long ass preamble is to illustrate 2 points:
Number 1: Even though Marvel did me dirty, I still got a lot out of this whole experience. I’m still proud of the work I did, and I’m proud of what these images sparked in both myself and in pop culture. Some things are cooler than corporate comics money. You can’t always pay your rent with them, but still. I’m grateful.
Number 2: I just want to emphasize how profoundly weird it is to see these variant covers through my eyes. Those mash-ups I did were so deeply personal for me and spread all over the world in such a thoughtful and organic way. Now, 5 years later, Marvel finally recognizes the creative and commercial merit in the idea – And despite having a pretty good roadmap, they still managed to execute it a) without me and b) in a fairly thoughtless and inorganic way.
My creative career is at a place right now where some really exciting doors are starting to open, but I still find the decision makers inside are somewhat perplexed by me and my ideas. That sort of thing can either shake or boost your confidence, and I try to lean towards the second option: I keep doing what I’m doing, and eventually I’ll get there. In this case, I didn’t get there, but my ideas did. An occupational hazard of doing dope shit, I suppose.
But yeah, they could’ve called your boy. It would’ve granted them a more thorough (and ethical) access to my 5 year old ideas, as well as my *right now* ideas which are even better.
They could’ve called a lot of other people, too. Because the bigger issue here isn’t even about me and my shit. (It’s not strictly limited to comics either, but let’s try and hold these goalposts still for a moment.)
There’s the respect issue: You don’t homage something by turning its most face-value components into a commodity. That’s not respect. That’s not understanding. Marvel claims to be having this “ongoing dialogue” with hip hop, but they might want to check their voice mail because hip hop’s been leaving them messages for a long, long time. Messages about art, about fashion, about politics, about race, about values, about narrative… Very, very little of which I’ve seen them absorb in any kind of meaningful way.
And then there’s the representation issue: Look, hip hop culture and African American culture might not be one and the same, but the two are still inextricably linked. To put so much hip hop on their covers, and so few black voices in their pages, is about as disingenuous as it gets. There’s a huge conversation right now in publishing and media about diversity. Marvel is aware of the demand for different types of stories, voices, characters, and perspectives in their books. Are these variant covers their way of addressing that? I have trouble processing the stupidity and contempt of such a gesture.
All that being said… While cultural appropriation sucks, cultural segregation isn’t much better. So on some level I’m always going to be glad when a Big 2 publisher inches a little bit closer towards connecting the dots. I’m not going to be walking up in the comic shop kicking over spinner racks and shit. These variants are a gimmick, but as far as gimmicks go it’s kind of a cool one. I just wish I could look at them without hearing Pat Boone’s “Tutti Frutti” playing in my head.
In closing, let me just say this: Fuck what you heard from Mitt Romney, corporations aren’t people. And so I don’t hold them to the same standards as I do people. I know how to distinguish between a huge, soulless money making machine and the flawed and beautiful human beings who work for one. So I harbor no ill will towards the artists, editors, and decision makers who set this whole thing up. I bet for some of them it was a genuine thrill, and for those people I am truly happy. I hope this experiment gives them more leverage to bring about positive and lasting growth to their little corner of this thing we call comics. And for those who didn’t quite understand the assignment, I hope they listen to the criticism with open minds and hearts, and use that information to do better in the future. Keep the movement moving.
Love,
Kenny Keil -----------------
www.albumism.com
Checkin' Our Style, Return To Zero:
https://www.mixcloud.com/returntozero/
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