Andrea MacDonald on the challenges of diversity in yoga studios and sorting out privilege — interview # 2

Andrea MacDonald

I’ve interviewed yoga instructor Andrea MacDonald before, but she’s someone who has much more to offer on the vast subject of privilege.   It’s easy for me to disengage when someone with significant cultural capital talks about diversity (it often seems subconsciously more about them being champions of an enlightened concept rather than anything really inclusive ) , but Andrea is mindful of her particular privileges and, more than that, she’s working for inclusion — not the easier, superficial kind, either. A second Words Away interview with her follows below :

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Often even the kind of diversity touted most comprises people with very similar sensibilities — the preaching to the choir effect, if you will.  Simply because of the way it’s been commodified, yoga tends to be something one is most aware of within a certain income bracket, within a “nice” town, or with a certain kind of education.  What have you found about diversity within that framework?  And, is Community Yoga Vancouver attracting diversity beyond it?     

 I think our organizing attracts a wide range of folks, both people who are already in the yoga networks and folks who are more activist-oriented — and folks who are curious about yoga but haven’t gone for any number of reasons. We’ve had people come to workshops who have never heard of concepts like un-ceded indigenous territory, or what rape culture is. That said, our organizing has limits. We often advertise through Facebook which means the network of people who show up are connected to us by no more than a few degrees of social connection. We’ve also done some street outreach and poster-ing, and folks have definitely shown up to our classes who either can’t afford yoga normally – or have been told it will help them but didn’t feel comfortable in a yoga studio space. We’re hoping the community will grow larger and more diverse when we open our own space and have some money to commit toward outreach outside of Facebook.

It will always be a challenge to host a space that draws in the diversity we are seeking to embody in our community – but it’s a challenge worth taking on. Many of our teachers – though I can especially speak for myself with this point – look like “regular” yoga teachers, but find a lot of yoga culture pretty abhorrent. This has lead us to try to offer something really different from regular yoga studios. We strive to have the difference we offer be felt, rather than proclaimed explicitly. That has been a big shift for us, how to make a space feel accessible, rather than just saying that it is – a proclamation which can feel intimidating for folks who aren’t familiar with more radical politics. We have our gaps of course. Our classes often have more white folks than people of colour, and up until now, we haven’t been able to find a space that is wheelchair accessible. We try to remember, though, that we are up against some pretty big systems that produce real barriers, barriers that take time to dismantle and work around.

 Many of our teachers – though I can especially speak for myself with this point – look like “regular” yoga teachers, but find a lot of yoga culture pretty abhorrent.

We’ve recently found a wheel chair-accessible space, and it’s our goal to offer safer space classes when we open the new space. Classes for folks of colour, taught by a South Asian teacher. Classes for queer and trans folks, taught by queer and trans teachers. Classes for folks with fat bodies, taught by a fat teacher. We have to start somewhere and that starting place is imperfect, complicated and shaped by capitalist, colonial, hetero, ableist, white supremacist patriarchy. Those are some big forces to come up against – all we can do is try. That’s our practice – to just keep trying until it works, or at the very least works better than it does now in regular studios. We evaluate as we go and choose not to give up, even when it feels overwhelming and scary and impossible.  We have to breathe and just keep trying.

How has it been finding teachers who are people of color, disabled — generally outside of what’s most commonly perceived as the yoga mold?  It seems pivotal to Community Yoga Vancouver’s goal — which would have your chosen vocation, the way its defined and the way it defines others not dominated by people with your relative privileges.  

I think you touched on a problematic dynamic that certainly exists. At Community Yoga we’ve had to be very vigilant and make difficult decisions with regard to our collective membership. Quite a few people have expressed a desire to teach with us, and we used to have a pretty open door policy. Allowing whoever wanted to teach to do so and not having clear protocol about how to join and what is required, meant we ended up with some teachers who didn’t reflect the values we wanted to embody. Since then we’ve really shifted gears, especially as we look to opening our own space. Over the course of our collective’s existence we’ve had quite a wide range of teachers – some folks of colour, quite a few queer folks and a self-identified fat teacher as well.  Even so recently we ended up with a collective full of white, able-bodied, cis-gendered women, and we had to ask ourselves – is this the kind of collective we want? This was a really difficult question to answer. Eventually we settled on the decision that some of the original members needed to part ways with the new members so that we could create space to build a more diverse group. We’re in the process of rebuilding now and we are very careful and thoughtful with regard to who we work with.

We’re focusing on building a collective that reflects the diversity we hope to cultivate in our space. It’s a really challenging process because we don’t want to tokenize anyone and it can feel wrong turning down talented teachers and healing practitioners (we’re opening a community-based healing space) simply because they don’t reflect the diversity we’re searching for. It’s a good reason, but that doesn’t make it uncomplicated. That said, as our collective has grown we are cultivating the diversity we want to see and it has made a tremendous difference. Even if you just look at our newly created protocol you can see an indigenous influence that was not there before. You can see the wisdom of older folks influencing the younger founders. This balance is contributing to us doing some of the most solid, thoughtful work we’ve done so far. It gives me faith that our project will grow in the direction we’ve always dreamed it would – a truly accessible, diverse space; rich for learning, growth and social justice organizing.

I think it’s also important to mention that at a certain point we just had to recognize and accept that the yoga world/industry/community is inaccessible – so it is going to be harder for us to find teachers with physical disabilities, or teachers of colour. When we recognize that reality, our work becomes about changing the landscape of what yoga looks like in Vancouver. We’re also connected to projects across the country that do great work opening up dialogue and teaching/learning opportunities for a wide range of people. The teacher training at Karma Teachers and the work of South Asian American Perspective on Yoga in America are great examples.

How so exactly regarding the indigenous influence in the new protocol?

An example would be the ritual that is written into our protocol for when someone leaves the collective. Members who are leaving now have the option to be swept with cedar boughs, and for the boughs to be cleansed in a river so the energy can be released. This ritual ties us to the land and medicine around us, and that is one of the fundamental purposes of our work.

I’m sorry to hear that some potential teachers are being turned away, though it does seem like such comes from genuinely complicated reasoning.  Diversity as a goal is too often conceptual, or something of a mantra,  with both most frequently heralded and crafted by people who are privileged.  How have/do you come to terms with your own privileges in this arena?      

It’s a tough balance for sure. A big part of coming to terms with my privilege has been granting myself the space to make mistakes and take criticism. Part of the reason diversity is so hard to cultivate is that big, huge, seemingly insurmountable systems of power work to keep us segregated and disconnected. When I make a mistake I may not be responsible for the system I’m in that made that mistake feel easy and sensical to me, but I am still responsible for my actions and how they impact people. People aren’t mad because I’m a bad person, they’re angry because my actions fall in line with a system that does violence to them and those they love. Those are big feelings and actions with serious consequences. It’s not about me – it’s about truly and deeply challenging f***ed up power systems. Learning to take meaningful action well is a hard path, but I can’t imagine organizing any other way.

Coming to terms with my privilege has been an emotional, mental, spiritual and political journey. I’m more careful now to question how much space I’m taking up. I try to offer as many opportunities as possible for people to take up space where I am usually relied on for leadership – or spaces where I just feel comfortable talking and teaching, when there may be others whose voices are being ignored. I try to do grudge work with a smile on my face – part of being an anti-racist ally is doing the work that isn’t glamorous, but that needs to happen and lightens the workload of someone whose voice needs to be heard more then mine. I also really take my time to process critiques and have started teaching and learning more and writing less. I do this in order to build relationship with community, rather than fuel my own ego. I basically question myself constantly, but I try to do it in a gentle way, where I’m not attempting to destroy myself to absolve guilt for my privilege.

Coming to terms with my privilege has been an emotional, mental, spiritual and political journey. I’m more careful now to question how much space I’m taking up. I try to offer as many opportunities as possible for people to take up space where I am usually relied on for leadership – or spaces where I just feel comfortable talking and teaching, when there may be others whose voices are being ignored.

Listening more is key – listening and taking action based on what I hear. So when other collective members told me that we need to recruit more people of colour and not more white folks, I stuck to what they said – even though it would be easier in the short-term not to listen.

About the classes Community Yoga offers to specific kinds of people whom are usually under-served, neglected, was there a call from these folks, specifically, about a need for such?

The impetuses for these classes came from a movement that is happening across North America. They also came from people specifically asking for them and from us seeing a gap in services. There are studios and teachers across North America offering populations specific classes, and these classes are changing communities and helping people heal. We’ve also had specific requests through our website and Facebook page. And there is definitely an element of us making an offering that may or may not be desired – an offering that we see as beneficial, that doesn’t resonate for everyone.

My hope is that we can make yoga welcoming, relatable and affordable enough for it to seem desirable to lots of people. Not everyone will be into it – but some people will, and they may even build a rad community with us. And that’s good enough for us.

I’m curious what your experience with crowdfunding for studio space has been like.  Crowdfunding has been praised as a new frontier, particularly for projects that wouldn’t necessarily fit the most commercial model of enterprise.  Your campaign didn’t meet all of its goal, but it was fairly successful (or at least more so than some other relatively ground-level ones are). Any thoughts on crowdfunding in general?

I think crowdfunding, like anything, is a double-edged sword. It’s paving a new path for funding that relies more on community than instructions and the whims of wealthy funders. At the same time, it requires a lot of labour to fulfill perks and keep funders happy. If the people you are getting funding from have more money (and therefore more privilege), you will be funded more easily. It’s not a process that is free of the complications of privilege and power systems – nothing is.

If the people you are getting funding from have more money (and therefore more privilege,) you will be funded more easily. It’s not a process that is free of the complications of privilege and power systems – nothing is.

It takes skill and experience to put together a successful campaign. We will be more successful if and when we crowdfund again, because we learned how to be better fundraisers by partially failing the first time around. Crowdfunding relies entirely on relationships and getting full buy-in from your team. It seems these days that everyone who is doing something cool, edgy, meaningful – or even blatantly self-indulgent – has tried or thought about or a crowdfunding campaign. These campaigns are only as successful as their idea is relevant and well communicated. But the bottom line, no matter what, is that you have an idea that can connect with and galvanize a community.

Thanks again to Andrea for her time.  

 Check out her blog at http://moonlitmoth.wordpress.com/

And Community Yoga Vancouver here: http://www.communityyogavancouver.com

Veronica Williams on writing poetry, being twentysomething, and Buddhist perspectives

Veronica Williams is a poet whose collection of work, FOUR YEARS (Part One), explores an existence that sometimes feels defined by limitations. She doesn’t pretend like it’s not often a shallow world. Her occasionally mature poetry is lyrical and contemplative. Veronica discusses her approach to writing and her particular underdog perspective in the following interview — right after a bit of her poetry:

If I play the damsel,
I am weak
The women will scorn me.
If I play the iron flower,
The men sorely resent me.
I am too much
If I go myself.
Excerpt from Veronica William’s “# 4”

How would you describe your approach to writing?

My approach is all over the place. Over the years, my regimen has evolved from a prim, proper, streamline affair to “eh, whenever the wind blows me in that direction.” I’m very last minute for things like blog entries and school work. I’m spur of the moment with my poetry. That’s the only part of me that isn’t programmed on a schedule. It’s more like “I’m feeling these words,” and there’s a pressure in my fingers to get it off my chest. My muse is pretty cruel about this, getting at me when I’m far away from my computer, or I can’t quickly open up NotePad or Word.

I pretty much stopped trying to approach creation like a tactical process. Rushed pieces are always the ones I regret. Although I end up being strapped for time with items that have a due date, I feel like “Veronica has spoken” when I approach the task at hand. My approach depends on my mood. I always ask myself what (if anything) I want to work on to exercise my brain, my craft, and my dusty writing folder. (There’s a lot of old material in there that needs to be finished!)

When I’m in the writing zone, I approach it based on emotions. Even reports have some emotional drive. Poetry becomes all those jumbled thoughts I’ve never dared to say to people. In some cases, myself. I admit things about long-lost lovers, family, and fears in my head. I reassure myself, I examine myself, sometimes I get mad at myself through the stanzas. I also think of other people. I’ve learned so much about the 20’s stage that has changed everything I THOUGHT I knew. I spend a lot of time on Tumblr, and I absorb the things my friends talk about. That inspiration helped me find a new approach–exiting from self-centered creations to “messages for everyone.”

In FOUR YEARS, there’s an ongoing exploration of where your persona fits into the world. You write about ‘fate,’ a little bit, which seems to mean established hierarchies. Do you think that’s a part of life that’s too often disregarded?

I think that it’s something that most people are very aware of. Some, more than others. I think we all have our moments where we wonder where we fit in, IF we fit in, and how we can maintain that establishment. I personally have never felt like I fit in anywhere. So, during that time period (pre-poetry book), there were things I got tired of writing about over and over in online blogs.

I was very unhappy with how my early to mid 20s were panning out! Oh goodness! I had all these ideas of what it meant to be in my 20s, and when none of these things were happening, I started to question myself heavily through my work. I began to feel like fate was really playing a trick on me, keeping me at the “underling” level on purpose.

I don’t think it’s a part of life that’s disregarded. Probably not constantly discussed. I especially think that there’s turning points in one’s life where people–even those who are established–ask themselves where and how they fit in the world. It’s a moment that may spark movement to change! It becomes especially true once you’re officially out of the teen years, and you’re out in the world establishing who you are as a person. It’s not always a smooth transition.

Can people really know how they fit into the world if they don’t know about their relative privileges or lack thereof? Neither of these things are natural so much as they’re crafted, and letting either define one’s life seems to be the only kind of fate I can think of.

OOOH! Such a deep question! So many layers to unpack! For the most part, I think people have a general idea. Once we become “established,” sometimes it might feel so strong that one would say “this is it.” When life happens, sometimes people are taken out of where they’ve been fitting in for years…sometimes decades! So, it’s probably knowing how to fit in that moment, which isn’t always promised. Indeed, neither of the circumstances of fitting in are natural.

This reminds me of how my religion sees karma! As it stands, there’s the non-Nichrien Buddhist way, which considers karma to be a bad thing. Aka “karma is a b!” It’s seen as something coming to “get” you. In Nichiren Buddhism, I learned not so long ago (like, literally a month ago at a meeting!) karma works in terms of “good outcome,” “bad outcome,” and “neutral.” The thing is, it goes either way and pretty much “just is,” but in our lives, we have the power to work around human suffering and become better people. We can learn from the bad things and keep the train moving.

For some of us underdogs, I think that we may stare at greener pastures, thinking all is well. Sometimes, it is. However, it doesn’t mean it is for us. There are things that person has done to get in that place. There are things we can do, but it doesn’t mean we’ll get the same result. When I looked back at the earlier poems, I began to realize this. My path was different from all my friends and classmates. My path was my very own, and I had journeys to make before I could have the love, the family, or the career I wanted. But I was frustrated! So back then, I wasn’t considering the fact that “fitting in” didn’t work in the perfect way it seemed to be for everyone else. There was one thing missing: I wasn’t putting myself out there. Or, when I did and got hurt or rejected, I decided NOT to dip a toe for a long time.

For some of us underdogs, I think that we may stare at greener pastures, thinking all is well. Sometimes, it is. However, it doesn’t mean it is for us. There are things that person has done to get in that place. There are things we can do, but it doesn’t mean we’ll get the same result.

Some things we will lack. Some things we are blessed to the rim with and do not even know it. It’s about as unnatural as the day is long, and it takes a long time of living, learning, and re-learning. Even my 61 year-old father is realizing this!

As someone who thinks FOUR YEARS is largely a quality collection of poems, I have to ask if you thought there were any other venues for it besides self-publishing.

I have to be 100% honest; I was not ready for the rejection of the traditional route. My goal was to get the first half of my poetry book I’d been carrying for years out into the open. This was a writing challenge. I wanted to prove to myself I could devote some time to what I loved. Despite all the “nay, nay” opinions, I did it anyway. I think that I let the work of other writers get to me. Rejection is a part of the process. So is critique! I made the mistake of comparing myself to other writers. So, as I doubted myself, I didn’t feel like I was ready to submit. I had a moment, made a choice, but gained confidence in the process!

I wanted to prove to myself I could devote some time to what I loved. Despite all the “nay, nay” opinions, I did it anyway.

Once I’m done with part two of the collection, I will bite the bullet and submit my next collection of poems to a non-self-publishing venue. Self-publishing was an interesting experience, but it fried my brain a little bit. I did a LOT of blind clicking in the beginning, constantly going back and revising all on my own. Once I got the preview copy in my hands, things changed. I was very, very proud of myself for completing part of a major project. It was, in fact, the very first piece of work that was technically published outside a digital form. It was a great feeling. I’d LOVE to re-live that moment with a publishing team, however!

You mentioned Buddhism earlier.   Why do you think it’s appealed to you?

Nichiren Buddhism was something my next door neighbor introduced me to after seeing me in the yard, burying my parakeet Ganymede. From then on, I attended meetings and went to the SGI Center here in Chicago, where I just learned and absorbed SO SO MUCH. It appealed to me because it spoke directly to the issues I’d been writing about in my book. Existing, improvement, finding myself. It also spoke on how having faith and being active in changing your life (as well as those around you) was an important part of being human.

The themes of finding courage, looking within–they hit home. I even had a chance to share my poetry at one of the meetings, which made a few members cry! It was really something. It introduced me to a new way of thinking and seeing life. While things aren’t perfect, solved, and healed, I feel like they’ve got the great potential to keep changing day by day. Buddhism opened my eyes to the fact that I’m here for a reason. My existence in this world means something!

I think it appealed to me most because it spoke to my questions about fate. I began (still learning) to learn and understand that while suffering is indeed a part of life, making changes and having faith are very important. Also, having love and concern for others’ happiness. To make a long story short, it just opened floodgates of understanding on all the questions I’d been asking myself since I was a teenager.

 Thanks to Veronica for her time.  You can follow her on twitter @MzWilliams08 and find out more about her work here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BI2QPLC

and here:

https://www.createspace.com/4116440

and last (but not least), Veronica’s poetry blog:

http://peridotlyrics.blogspot.com/

Robert Rudney on why he wrote a novel, living with a disability, and pity

It’s a tale we see time and time again: a man with left-side paralysis joins a self-help group for people with disabilities, and finds himself falling for a woman dealing with multiple sclerosis.  Okay, wait, I may have exaggerated by about 1,000% what we do see of such fictional portrayals.  But with Robert Rudney’s Lovers Lame, there’s one solid story about people with disabilities being all human and stuff — and it’s by someone with a disability. See my interview with Rudney, a defense specialist and former head of an employment self-help group for people with disabilities, below:

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Maybe you weren’t conscious of it at the time, but when you were writing Lovers Lame were there any mainstream books or authors that made you think there was space on that shelf for what you wanted to do? 

There has been no disability novel written by an individual with a real disability.  Temporarily able-bodied authors like Jodi Picoult make an effort in books like House Rules.  But no one has caught how it feels from the inside to have a disability and how difficult it is to form intimate relationships with other human beings.  That’s why I wrote Lovers Lame.

I once heard the sentiment that the reality of society is marginalized people remain marginalized.  What makes it particularly significant is that it’s the only time I can recall hearing that from a person whom was also pretty liberal.  As someone who ran a networking group for the physically disabled, do you think there’s truth to that?    

Lots of surveys these days show an increasingly inequitable distribution of wealth.  People with disabilities are caught in the downward spiral because they are forced to depend on entitlements like SSDI, SSI, Medicare and Medicaid that entrap them in genteel poverty.  That was the case for a lot of individuals in my networking group.  Many couldn’t take a job because they couldn’t risk losing Medicare or Medicaid, and employer health plans (if they existed) were not sufficient for their health needs.

The employment conundrum is a key sub-theme of Lovers Lame.

Have experiences that come just because you’re physically disabled made you empathize with other marginalized people?  Or do you find that there are divisions between you and people whom have similar experiences from different vantage points?

I have been pitied and over-accommodated and advertised as a “poster child” for people with disabilities.  However, I was able to transcend my disability and make it up the career ladder with little or no assistance from legal protections like the ADA.  I was one of a small minority in this respect.  Every disability is different and has its own unique vantage point.  The difficulties in communicating among people with disabilities is another key sub-theme of Lovers Lame.  The narrator, David, has something close to cerebral palsy and falls hopelessly in love with Jessica, a tempestuous artist with multiple sclerosis.  Their failure to communicate is one of the driving forces of the novel.

Every disability is different and has its own unique vantage point.  The difficulties in communicating among people with disabilities is another key sub-theme of Lovers Lame. 

I think, with mainstream culture being what it is, there’s a strange dichotomy between normalcy and having to come to terms with the fact that a certain amount of what is good syncs up with looking a certain way, with taking certain roads home.  David, the narrator of your book, seems like a guy who carries a certain weight with him in this regard.  A quick glance at the guy in certain situations and he may look ordinary enough, but anything beyond that, and his left-side paralysis doesn’t make for someone who looks normal.  As he is initially in your book, he seems introverted and closed off, even to himself somewhat.    

Yes, we have a packaged, programmed view of what people should look like, what is accepted to be ‘normal.’ In  Lovers Lame, David draws a sharp distinction between his condition and that of his brother Ted, an able-bodied athlete, affluent businessman, happily married.

At times, David (like me) tries to hide his disability and usually fails.  Too many experiences like this induce a heavy dose of introspection and introversion, both in fictional characters (David) and ‘real life’ (Bob Rudney).

With how rare they are in general, have typical portrayals of people with disabilities been something that you’ve  found alienating?

All those condescending poster-children portrayals drive me up the wall.  In the immortal words of Ed Roberts, the pioneering disability activist:  “Piss on pity.”

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Thanks to Robert for his time.  Find out more about him and his novel at these links:   

http://booklocker.com/books/6101.html

http://www.loverslame.com

Paul Tobin on writing, diversity in comics, and making your own path

Paul Tobin’s novel from Night Shade Books.

Paul Tobin is a writer whose work has included comics for Dark Horse, DC and Marvel, in addition to a recent novel from Night Shade Books.  If there’s a common thread I’ve seen in his work, it’s an energy that innately comes from the characters as much as the plot.  My interview with Paul below:         

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What drew you to comics as a medium for storytelling?

I’ve always been a big fan of the medium. I suppose it’s the wealth of tales that can be told, and the energy of the art. I grew up reading comics that my grandmother would bring home from garage sales (she bought everything at whim, and her house was that of a hoarder), so I was comfortable with how to tell stories using the combination of art and words.

It’s a dangerous art form, in a way, because when it works, it really works, but when it doesn’t, it falls apart completely. It’s like an art form and a puzzle at the same time. That’s often really enjoyable, although some time I also like to step back and take more control, which is why I recently released Prepare To Die!… my debut novel.

You’ve gotten to write some characters with amazing histories.  What particular highlights have there been for you in adding to them?

Oddly, I actively tried to AVOID highlights. Going in to writing all these iconic characters, I noticed how other writers felt they had to put a big fat stamp on Spider-Man, or Batman, or whoever… saying, “REMEMBER ME! I’M THE ONE WHO KILLED SPIDER-MAN’S BEST FRIEND / LOVER / AUNT / PET DOG! MY STORY WAS IMPORTANT.” I really wanted to avoid that. I just wanted to do good, solid stories. I think I achieved that. I’m particularly happy with my run on Spider-Man in Marvel Adventures.

Regarding Prepare to Die!, in retrospect what were the challenges and benefits you found in novelizing a story that might traditionally be told in comics?

The challenges were that I needed to be richer in my writing … needed to delve farther into the life and character, because no artist would be fleshing out the details. But that’s actually what drew me to writing it as a novel … the fact that I COULD go more in depth, that characterization didn’t need to be a couple hurried pages between fight scenes, that readers could grow to understand and care for a character as more than just the iconic white hat in a fight scene. I wanted to write a story about a character’s life, rather than just an ongoing fight scene, which is what far too many comics have become.

I wanted to write a story about a character’s life, rather than just an ongoing fight scene, which is what far too many comics have become.   

On your blog you recently had an interesting list of favorite female characters in literature.  It’s a list that has characters that most people who regularly pick up a book or comic book would be fond of, but, that said, there’s not much ethnic variety (which is certainly not atypical and not intentional, I’m sure).

The problem is certainly there, but I think it’s loosening. Looking back through literature / media, the cast of characters is largely male, and almost entirely white, which means when compiling a list of favorite characters, it’s naturally going to skew in that direction, which is too bad. It’s one of the reasons I chose to do a “favorite females” list, incidentally… because these characters don’t normally get same billing as male characters. But … I do think that ethnic characters are becoming more common. My own writing on Spider-Girl was a step forward, and I always tried to work in various ethnicities in everything I’ve ever written. My scripts are FULL of saying, for instance, “We’re in NEW YORK! Don’t make everybody white.” Spider-Girl’s roommate was black, Annah’s girlfriend (in my Gingerbread Girl graphic novel) was black, and I’ve an upcoming graphic novel (unannounced at this time) where the main character, Allison, is a black woman. So, strides are being taken … it’s just that, looking into characters of the past in order to compile a “favorites” list … there’s sadly not much diversity.

Understood. So, while people of all walks of life are heavily invested in comic heroes, from historically to now there hasn’t been a diverse pool of creators behind those universes, either.  This is common in most forms of media: that it’s exceedingly more likely to have a minority character written by someone who is not.  I genuinely think that stepping out of one’s self is one of the challenges, privileges of writing, but is such an imbalance of people who can write heroes/characters whom happen to be minorities an issue?

I think it can be an issue, yes. And it’s MUCH more an issue in mainstream superhero books. Lots of great indy / alt. creators aren’t the typical white male comic creator… ESPECIALLY in the field of online comics, and I think the diversity of entertainment that can be had in that area is much wider than the narrow mainstream. So, yeah … it’s pretty inevitable that diversity leads to diversity. I do think it’s widening in all areas, though. Just that fact that digital comics are reaching areas where traditional comic sales never reached is important, because comics are reaching whole new demographics that weren’t reached in the past. And that in turn is inspiring those demographics to create comics in turn, comics that might be more focused on those demographics. It’s a win / win. I’m old enough to remember when it was extremely rare for a comic creator to be anything other than a white male. Now, it’s merely uncommon. So… while “uncommon” doesn’t sound that great… the direction we’re moving is toward progress.

Of course, a creator doesn’t have to be the gender / nationality of the character he or she is writing (I’m proud of my work on Spider-Girl, for instance, but haven’t ever been a sixteen-year-old Hispanic girl) but it’s nice to open the possibility of those voices.

I’m old enough to remember when it was extremely rare for a comic creator to be anything other than a white male. Now, it’s merely uncommon. So… while “uncommon” doesn’t sound that great… the direction we’re moving is toward progress

Your comic with illustrator Colleen Coover, Bandette, seems like it has elements of both alternative comics and ‘mainstream’ comics — two worlds that I’ve rarely seen cross over into each other.  Was being able to craft it for a newer venue part of the reason that it came together the way it did?  Also, tell me that something with artwork that great is also available in print.

Colleen and I always like to experiment, so it was more that than the way we’re releasing it digitally. And the fact that the work is inspired by many French and Italian creations just meant that it made sense to shake it up artistically as well, with a soft emulation of some of those art styles. And … we’re in talks for releasing it in print form. We wouldn’t want to do it as a monthly comic: I just don’t think it lends itself to that, and also we wouldn’t want to have that strict a monetary template, or monthly deadline … but releasing it in collected volumes makes a lot of sense.

Finally, what do you feel like helped most firmly plant your foot in the door of the comic world? 

Not stopping. That’s it. That’s all there really is to it. Keep producing work, and eventually you’ll begin to get paid for it. And it’s important to remember that work ANYWHERE should be done in a professional manner, and the internet not only counts, but it’s beginning to count MORE than print comics. Choose what you want to create… find or create an avenue for it, and then don’t stop.

Much thanks to Paul for his time.  Check out more about him and his work at the informative and aptly named http://www.paultobin.net/.

The Infinite Wait is over (kind of)

“The Infinite Wait” from Koyama Press.

More accurately, the wait for “The Infinite Wait” is over.  The latest collection of comics by Julia Wertz is now available for sale at her online store and other venues.   Her comics are frequently funny and never mundane — a combination well worth supporting.

A short excerpt from the interview that she was kind enough to do with me at this very blog:

“I made The Infinite Wait because I had been working on a book about sobriety that was really becoming too difficult to manage and I wanted to do something that was much more lighthearted. So, uh, I did a story about being diagnosed with systemic lupus. Yeah.”

For much more (with the added bonus of seeing her work), check out that interview:

Julia Wertz on The Infinite Wait, being off Pizza Island, and comedy with humanity and also http://www.juliawertz.com.