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soc_puppet[CONTENT NOTE: Discussion of homophobia, misogyny, racism, ablism, and transphobia, mostly in the 'passive' sense.]
Disclaimer: With only one read through under my belt on an as-it-comes-out basis, and nearly ten years' worth of almost daily comics to go through if I want to check anything, I'm probably forgetting stuff! A bunch of stuff, even. Everything in here is to the best of my memory, and I welcome corrections.
I've been a fan of the webcomic Dominic Deegan since sometime in Chapter Four: Into The Woods; I'm coming up on ten years of being a regular reader, only about four months after the comics own ten year anniversary. I've seen the characters grow and change, become more than who they started as; I've seen the cast get bigger and more complex, seen the story do the same. As far as these things go, the comic itself is pretty damn progressive! There's a fair number of recurring female characters who are all well developed, as brilliant and as broken, as flawed and as fantastic as the male characters, amazing villains and heroes who are almost always given detailed backstories and reasons for doing the things they do, and themes tend to focus on civil rights and respect for all peoples. Female sexuality as acknowledged and accepted and even celebrated, as is female autonomy. PWD are respected and represented. One of the creator's favorite characters, Szark, is gay.
I don't always like the narrative decisions its creator, Mookie, makes, but I almost always respect them, especially because Mookie himself has shown that he puts a lot of thought into making these decisions, and that he takes reader feedback into account. I love having so much respect for the generator of a creative work; it gives me another level of enjoyment, so that even when I don't necessarily like what's going on in a given work, I can still appreciate it and have faith that something I'll like better is coming up soon.
All that said, Dominic Deegan is a little bit 101-level progressive. Yes, the female characters are demonstratively equal in skill and accomplishments, but there are fewer of them introduced both in general and as recurring characters than male characters. Yes characters of many sexualities are represented and respected, but only one gay character is a recurring cast member (that I'm aware of), and the only recurring (presumably) bi character that I'm aware of has been a villain for quite some time; I'd put the bi character's chances of dying as a villain or just barely after redemption at one third each (with an equal chance of him surviving after redemption or to still be redeemed). I practically danced when the comic's first (openly?) trans* character was introduced, and anticipate seeing her again eventually, but don't know how to feel about the fact that she went into the magical equivalent of plastic/reconstructive surgery; I'd be willing to buy that she became interested in the subject because of her dysphoria and grew to love it for its own sake, but without the backstory for that yet built up and shared I'm left to make assumptions on my own.
While there are characters of different human skin tones, there aren't, to the best of my memory, very many of them, let alone recurring characters, for all that there are a number of different cultures built in the world and in how much depth the discrimination against Orcs has been explored. Dominic ended up with a physical disability a good chunk into the main storyline, but it rarely comes up; Gregory Deegan started out with a disability that was removed in the same chapter in which he was introduced. As far as invisible disabilities go, Luna begins the story suicidally depressed, but we haven't seen her struggling with her low self esteem and related issues for a while now; when we meet him, Nimmel is physically scarred and dealing with self-esteem and guilt-related depressive issues of his own, and was quite shy in the past, but everything except the scar/plot-related guilt seems to have gone away; Melna has some PTSD, but it rarely ever comes up; invisible disabilities end up being mostly a non-issue for anyone affected by them.
So when Mookie announced that, due to his continuing (and well justified, from what I'm aware) disappointment in modern mainstream superhero comics - mostly the DCnU, I'm pretty sure - he was thinking of staring up his own superhero webcomic, I had mixed feelings. I still have mixed feelings. For the most part, I'm definitely excited; he seems aware of the general social critiques of mainstream superhero comics, and with how much I've enjoyed Dominic Deegan, I'm sure I'll enjoy his next venture as well.
Another small part of me is filled with dread. For all Mookie's good intentions and generally good execution, what will his superhero main character(s) look like? Will he have a superhero team, and if so, how closely will it resemble the teams from the more common works: will it be a little better in terms of equality, or a lot better? Will it fall somewhere in between? How will it explore the inequalities addressed in our own world, whether or not it takes place here? Can I possibly hope for another two or three non-stereotypical LGBTQIA characters produced by someone so widely read? What of people with invisible disabilities? PTSD is probably particularly common in superhero communities, and then there's anything they might be dealing with on top of it. How about people who aren't like me, including people of color and people with visible disabilities? The world is rich with things I am not, and many of those things are also things I don't see in the media very often.
There's two ways to find out: One, I can wait until Mookie starts his new comic and see how things play out that way, and be just slightly disappointed as likely as not. Two, I can contact him directly and ask what his plans are for character makeup, voice my concerns to the man himself. Two is an option I've been thinking about for a while now; ever since he explained in the "fluffier/funnier" stories following the epic March Across Maltak exactly how he was taking reader feedback and concerns into account, I've been toying with the idea of asking if he'd introduce more female or queer characters specifically (I am selfish, though I hope I would have thought to ask for members of other marginalized groups as well). Unfortunately, that's where the battle with my anxiety begins, and I'm entirely unsure whether I'm more or less worried by the prospect of a response than a lack of one [given Mookie's new year's resolution this year was to answer all his e-mails].
And this in turn is how I test my courage: Do I build myself up and send an e-mail to someone whose work I enjoy and who I respect and admire in the hopes that he will take my concerns to heart, that perhaps I and other marginalized people will have a greater chance of seeing ourselves in his work in the future - or do I hold my words close to my heart in the fear that my worries will be dismissed and I will have one less person I respect so dearly? I hope I can find the answer soon, and I hope even more that I'm not disappointed by what I decide.
Disclaimer: With only one read through under my belt on an as-it-comes-out basis, and nearly ten years' worth of almost daily comics to go through if I want to check anything, I'm probably forgetting stuff! A bunch of stuff, even. Everything in here is to the best of my memory, and I welcome corrections.
I've been a fan of the webcomic Dominic Deegan since sometime in Chapter Four: Into The Woods; I'm coming up on ten years of being a regular reader, only about four months after the comics own ten year anniversary. I've seen the characters grow and change, become more than who they started as; I've seen the cast get bigger and more complex, seen the story do the same. As far as these things go, the comic itself is pretty damn progressive! There's a fair number of recurring female characters who are all well developed, as brilliant and as broken, as flawed and as fantastic as the male characters, amazing villains and heroes who are almost always given detailed backstories and reasons for doing the things they do, and themes tend to focus on civil rights and respect for all peoples. Female sexuality as acknowledged and accepted and even celebrated, as is female autonomy. PWD are respected and represented. One of the creator's favorite characters, Szark, is gay.
I don't always like the narrative decisions its creator, Mookie, makes, but I almost always respect them, especially because Mookie himself has shown that he puts a lot of thought into making these decisions, and that he takes reader feedback into account. I love having so much respect for the generator of a creative work; it gives me another level of enjoyment, so that even when I don't necessarily like what's going on in a given work, I can still appreciate it and have faith that something I'll like better is coming up soon.
All that said, Dominic Deegan is a little bit 101-level progressive. Yes, the female characters are demonstratively equal in skill and accomplishments, but there are fewer of them introduced both in general and as recurring characters than male characters. Yes characters of many sexualities are represented and respected, but only one gay character is a recurring cast member (that I'm aware of), and the only recurring (presumably) bi character that I'm aware of has been a villain for quite some time; I'd put the bi character's chances of dying as a villain or just barely after redemption at one third each (with an equal chance of him surviving after redemption or to still be redeemed). I practically danced when the comic's first (openly?) trans* character was introduced, and anticipate seeing her again eventually, but don't know how to feel about the fact that she went into the magical equivalent of plastic/reconstructive surgery; I'd be willing to buy that she became interested in the subject because of her dysphoria and grew to love it for its own sake, but without the backstory for that yet built up and shared I'm left to make assumptions on my own.
While there are characters of different human skin tones, there aren't, to the best of my memory, very many of them, let alone recurring characters, for all that there are a number of different cultures built in the world and in how much depth the discrimination against Orcs has been explored. Dominic ended up with a physical disability a good chunk into the main storyline, but it rarely comes up; Gregory Deegan started out with a disability that was removed in the same chapter in which he was introduced. As far as invisible disabilities go, Luna begins the story suicidally depressed, but we haven't seen her struggling with her low self esteem and related issues for a while now; when we meet him, Nimmel is physically scarred and dealing with self-esteem and guilt-related depressive issues of his own, and was quite shy in the past, but everything except the scar/plot-related guilt seems to have gone away; Melna has some PTSD, but it rarely ever comes up; invisible disabilities end up being mostly a non-issue for anyone affected by them.
So when Mookie announced that, due to his continuing (and well justified, from what I'm aware) disappointment in modern mainstream superhero comics - mostly the DCnU, I'm pretty sure - he was thinking of staring up his own superhero webcomic, I had mixed feelings. I still have mixed feelings. For the most part, I'm definitely excited; he seems aware of the general social critiques of mainstream superhero comics, and with how much I've enjoyed Dominic Deegan, I'm sure I'll enjoy his next venture as well.
Another small part of me is filled with dread. For all Mookie's good intentions and generally good execution, what will his superhero main character(s) look like? Will he have a superhero team, and if so, how closely will it resemble the teams from the more common works: will it be a little better in terms of equality, or a lot better? Will it fall somewhere in between? How will it explore the inequalities addressed in our own world, whether or not it takes place here? Can I possibly hope for another two or three non-stereotypical LGBTQIA characters produced by someone so widely read? What of people with invisible disabilities? PTSD is probably particularly common in superhero communities, and then there's anything they might be dealing with on top of it. How about people who aren't like me, including people of color and people with visible disabilities? The world is rich with things I am not, and many of those things are also things I don't see in the media very often.
There's two ways to find out: One, I can wait until Mookie starts his new comic and see how things play out that way, and be just slightly disappointed as likely as not. Two, I can contact him directly and ask what his plans are for character makeup, voice my concerns to the man himself. Two is an option I've been thinking about for a while now; ever since he explained in the "fluffier/funnier" stories following the epic March Across Maltak exactly how he was taking reader feedback and concerns into account, I've been toying with the idea of asking if he'd introduce more female or queer characters specifically (I am selfish, though I hope I would have thought to ask for members of other marginalized groups as well). Unfortunately, that's where the battle with my anxiety begins, and I'm entirely unsure whether I'm more or less worried by the prospect of a response than a lack of one [given Mookie's new year's resolution this year was to answer all his e-mails].
And this in turn is how I test my courage: Do I build myself up and send an e-mail to someone whose work I enjoy and who I respect and admire in the hopes that he will take my concerns to heart, that perhaps I and other marginalized people will have a greater chance of seeing ourselves in his work in the future - or do I hold my words close to my heart in the fear that my worries will be dismissed and I will have one less person I respect so dearly? I hope I can find the answer soon, and I hope even more that I'm not disappointed by what I decide.
