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Monthly Archives: June 2023

Visiting Discovery Place’s Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes Exhibit with Michael Kobre

June 26, 2023 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Visiting Discovery Place’s Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes Exhibit with Michael Kobre – Charlotte has long been a hub for all things related to comic books.  It’s the home to Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find, which opened in 1980 and is now widely recognized as one of the nation’s premier comics shops. It’s the location of the annual Heroes Convention, which is organized every June by Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find. And now Charlotte’s Discovery Place Science Museum is hosting the blockbuster touring exhibit titled Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes. Charlotte is the exhibition’s only stop in the entire Southeast.  After the exhibit closes on September 4, 2023, it will go on tour in Europe.  For more detailed information about this exhibit, please click on the following link:  https://my.discoveryplace.org/marvel/

When I first heard about the opening of the Marvel exhibit, I immediately thought of Dr. Michael Kobre. Mike is the Dana Professor of English at Queens University of Charlotte.  In addition to being the author of a scholarly book about Walker Percy’s novels, Mike is an expert on Marvel superheroes.  His publications on this topic include an essay titled “Only Transform: The Monstrous Bodies of Superheroes,” which is about the transformative bodies of Marvel’s superheroes. I contacted Mike and asked him if he would be willing to provide me with his responses to the Marvel : Universe of Super Heroes exhibit, and he kindly agreed to do so.  Here is what he sent to me:

In a panel at this year’s Heroes Convention on the “Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes” exhibition now on display at Discovery Place, one of the exhibition’s curators, the comics scholar Ben Saunders, explained how the exhibition was designed to tell a story about the history of Marvel in comics, film, and television and its enormous influence on our culture. And that’s exactly what you find when you step into the exhibition and you follow the history of a second-tier comics company that became over decades a media giant and a cultural phenomenon. Richly illustrated, the exhibition is filled with costumes and props from Marvel’s cinematic universe and a lavish display of original art from the comics, which are all featured in multi-media spaces that include a room designed to look like the surreal dimensions of Doctor Strange and another that lets you feel like you’re stepping into the suburban community conjured into existence by the Scarlet Witch in the Disney+ series WandaVision.

Framed throughout the exhibition in large display cases, the costumes show the extraordinary detail and craftsmanship of the filmmakers, including the Academy Award-winning designs of the Black Panther costumes created by Ruth E. Carter, the first Black artist to receive an Oscar for Best Costume Design. But for this longtime comics fan, whose imagination was forever transformed when I discovered Marvel Comics as a small child in the early 1960s, the real magic of the exhibition comes from all that original comics art. Seeing the pages that created this universe in this form is a revelation, since so much of the art’s detail and its bold, energetic lines were lost in the muddy reproduction of old comic books printed on cheap pulp paper. Among the work here is the only surviving page of original art from the very first Marvel comic book, Marvel Comics #1 from 1939: the last page of the Sub-Mariner story by Bill Everett, one of the greatest artists of the first wave of comic book creators, whose signature character, Prince Namor, would come to life on the screen in 2022 in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. But all of the greats are here too, including Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita, Marie Severin, Gene Colon, and so many others, along with contemporary creators like Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz. In fact, a short visual essay on one of the exhibition’s media tables on Miller’s storytelling techniques in his groundbreaking run on Daredevil in the 1980s offers a superb overview of how comics work as a form. For those who want to learn about comics and comics history, this exhibition is a great place to start.

But the presentation of all this art highlights a problem too in the story that the exhibition tells. Because for decades artists like Kirby and Ditko toiled in what was seen as a junk industry, creating seemingly disposable pages at work-for-hire rates. Kirby, for instance, would work 14 hours a day, seven days a week, in a basement studio he called “the dungeon” to pay his bills and support his family, with no ownership of characters he at least co-created which would come to be worth billions of dollars. By contrast though, Stan Lee, who as editor was a salaried employee of his uncle Martin Goodman’s publishing company, enjoyed much greater financial security and, as the company’s public face, could claim greater credit for the characters’ creation. This inequity, which is baked into the history of the American comic book industry, is manifest in the exhibit too in the way it echoes the conventional—and inaccurate—story that Lee was the guiding hand in creating the Marvel universe and that artists like Kirby and Ditko worked to realize and develop Lee’s vision, rather than serving as principal architects of that universe themselves.

Not long after you walk into the exhibition, there’s a giant display filled with images of Lee and clips of his cameos from the movies, with a much smaller reproduction of Kirby’s drawing table right around the corner, in the shadow of Lee’s monument. But in what Lee would called “the Marvel method” of producing comic books, artists like Kirby, working from plot descriptions generated in loose conversations which may or may not have been written down, would create finished pages that Lee would add dialogue and captions to later. And given this method, which the exhibition does in fact detail, it’s hard to know who was responsible for the creative choices in almost any given issue. With all this in mind, as much as I enjoyed everything around me, I was bothered by what seemed like the insufficient credit in the exhibition given to Kirby, who co-created the Fantastic Four, Thor, The Hulk, the Black Panther, and so many others, and to Ditko, who co-created Spider-Man and almost surely solely created Doctor Strange.

Still, Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes lives up to its name. Walk past the costumes and the props and the art, through the swirling shapes of Doctor Strange’s Dark Dimension, past the life-size statues of Spider-Man, the Black Panther, and others, and you’ll feel like you’re in another universe. As Stan Lee, who was always a master promoter, might say on the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page in a 1960s comic, “Face Front, True Believer! This one’s for you!”

I thank Mike for sharing his responses to the Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes exhibit. I urge everyone who is interested in comics and superhero narratives to visit this Marvel exhibit while it is still in Storied Charlotte. 

Tags: Superheroes

Juneteenth Books Recommended by Janaka Bowman Lewis

June 19, 2023 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Juneteenth is an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.  It is also, however, a teachable moment—an opportunity to learn more about Juneteenth and the history of the struggle to abolish slavery.  I always turn to books when I want to learn about a topic, but there are lots of books about Juneteenth that have been published in recent years.  In order to figure out where to start when selecting books on this topic, I contacted my friend and colleague Dr. Janaka Bowman Lewis and asked her if she would help me.  Janaka teaches courses on African American literature in the English Department at UNC Charlotte and is the author of the recently published Light and Legacies: Stories of Black Girlhood and Liberation.  Given her background, she is the perfect person to recommend some excellent books about Juneteenth.  Here is what she sent to me:

For kids I recommend Juneteenth for Mazie, written and illustrated by Floyd Cooper (2016).  In this picture book, young Mazie is tired of hearing “no”—to staying up late, to having another cookie, and to doing things she wants to do.  Her father reminds her that her great-great-great grandpa Mose had to wait, too, but he was waiting for his freedom from the institution of slavery.  He tells her about Grandpa Mose working in the fields, hard labor with no pay, until he hears the proclamation of his and other African Americans’ freedom from a balcony in Galveston, Texas (on June 19, 1865, when soldiers arrived more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation announced abolition of enslavement in states that had seceded from the United States). 

The book describes Great-great-great grandpa Mose and his community dancing into the night after the proclamation, and then continuing to work, save the money they earned, and never forgetting the moment they heard of their freedom.  They still struggled and weren’t treated as equals to white people but never gave up, and every year, on Juneteenth, they “celebrated and remembered,” as Mazie did when she woke up the next day.  Juneteenth for Mazie is a reminder of the history of enslavement that led to Juneteenth and the celebration of endurance that continues even despite unequal treatment.  It is also a reminder for families and communities to tell the story of freedom through generations.

For more experienced readers, Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth (2021), uses memoir and history to provide a context for what led to the national holiday.  American historian and professor Gordon-Reed, who is also a native Texan, begins with a preface that describes the surprise of hearing people outside of Texas celebrate the holiday out of a sense of possessiveness even with the positive nature of celebrating the turn in. history.   She argues that Texans have been “at the forefront” of trying to make Juneteenth a national holiday (President Joe Biden signed a congressional bill to make it a federal holiday in 2021).  In clarifying that it was not actually until December 1865 when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified that slavery legally ended (although General Granger’s order was issued in June), Gordon-Reed offers a view of the landscape of the United States and the difficulties in overcoming institutional, statewide, and national inequity and discrimination to get to recognition of humanity.

The essays in On Juneteenth examine Gordon-Reed’s own history, from both of her parents’ Texas roots in the 1820s and 1860s, the story of Texas and the road to freedom for those who lived there, and how the context shaped her and her family’s life in the state and beyond as she argues that “behind all the broad stereotypes about Texas (including stories of indigenous peoples, settler colonialists, Hispanic culture, slavery, race, and immigration), . . . It is the American story, told from this most American place.”  Rather than a chronological narrative of Juneteenth, she offers a story of place and people therein, including the public imagination of Texas, and the stories that have been told to preserve what people want to believe about the narrative of the state and the nation.  Having integrated her town’s schools in East Texas, Gordon-Reed is also well positioned to account for what she calls the “counter narratives” that circulate about statewide progress and what happens when we try to escape local and national truths.

I thank Janaka for recommending these Juneteenth books.  I also thank her for always being willing to share her expertise on the history of Black literature and culture with everyone in Storied Charlotte.

Tags: Juneteenth

Taking Readers to Another Place and Time

June 13, 2023 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Writers of historical fiction are first and foremost storytellers, but they are also tour guides who take readers to other places and times.  In most historical novels, the settings, both in terms of place and time, play integral roles in the unfolding of the plots.  Such is the case with two recently published historical novels written by Joy Callaway and Nancy Northcott, both of whom are Charlotte writers.

Joy’s new novel is titled All the Pretty Places: A Novel of the Gilded Age.  The story begins in Rye, New York, in April 1893. Like Joy’s previously published historical novels, All the Pretty Places features a determined heroine who strives to establish a career during a time when society often placed limitations on women’s career opportunities. In the case of All the Pretty Places, the central character is Sadie Fremd, the daughter of an entrepreneur who founded Rye Nurseries. Sadie shares her father’s passion for horticulture and longs to take over the family business when her father retires.  He has other plans for her.  Sadie’s predicament is nicely captured in the following blurb provided by the publisher:

Sadie Fremd’s dreams hinge on her family’s nursery, which has been the supplier of choice for respected landscape architects on the East Coast for decades. Now her small town is in a panic as the economy plummets into a depression, and Sadie’s father is pressuring her to secure her future by marrying a wealthy man among her peerage—but Sadie has never been one to play it safe. Besides, her heart is already spoken for.

Rather than seek potential suitors, Sadie pursues new business from her father’s most reliable and wealthy clients of the Gilded Age in an attempt to bolster the floundering nursery. But the more time Sadie spends in the secluded gardens of the elite, the more she notices the hopelessness in the eyes of those outside the mansions. The poor, the grieving, the weary. The people with no access to the restorative beauty of nature.

Sadie has always wanted her father to pass his business to her instead of to one of her brothers, but he seems oblivious to her desire and talent—and now to her passion for providing natural beauty to those who can’t afford it. When former employee, Sam, shows up unexpectedly, Sadie wonders if their love can be rekindled or if his presence will simply be another reminder of a life she longs for and cannot have.

Joy Callaway illuminates the life of her great-great-grandmother in this captivating story about a daring woman following her passion and finding her voice, while exploring natural beauty and its effect in the lives of those who need it most.

For more information about Joy and her novels, please click on the following link:  https://www.joycallaway.com

Nancy’s new novel, The King’s Champion, concludes her Boar King’s Honor historical fantasy trilogy.The central premise of the trilogy, running through all three books, is that Richard III was framed for the murders of his nephews, who’re known as the Princes in the Tower, and the king was killed at Bosworth Field before the wizard who unwittingly assisted in the murders could name the true killer. Speaking up under the Tudors, who followed King Richard on the throne, would have cost the wizard his life. Tormented by guilt, he cursed all his heirs to not rest in life or death until they cleared the king’s name.

While the family’s quest to lift the curse runs through all three books, each centers on a bigger problem with higher, wider-ranging stakes. Everything wraps up in The King’s Champion. Here’s a description provided by the author:

Caught up in the desperate evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from France in the summer of 1940, photojournalist Kate Shaw witnesses death and destruction that trigger disturbing visions. She doesn’t believe in magic and tries to pass them off as survivor guilt or an overactive imagination, but the increasingly intense visions force her to accept that she is not only magically Gifted but a seer.

In Dover, she meets her distant cousin Sebastian Mainwaring, Earl of Hawkstowe and an officer in the British Army. He’s also a seer and is desperate to recruit her rare Gift for the war effort. The fall of France leaves Britain standing alone as the full weight of Nazi military might threatens. Kate’s untrained Gift flares out of control, forcing her to accept Sebastian’s help in conquering it as her ethics compel her to use her ability for the cause that is right.

As this fledgling wizard comes into her own, her visions warn of an impending German invasion, Operation Sealion, which British intelligence confirms. At the same time, desire to help Sebastian, who’s doomed by a family curse arising from a centuries-old murder, leads Kate to a shadowy afterworld between life and death and the trapped, fading souls who are the roots of her family’s story. From the bloody battlefields of France to the salons of London, Kate and Sebastian race against time to free his family’s cursed souls and to stop an invasion that could doom the Allied cause.

For more information about the Boar King’s Honor trilogy and Nancy’s other work, please visit her website, www.NancyNorthcott.com.

Although Joy’s All the Pretty Places is a work of historical realism and Nancy’s The King’s Champion is a work of historical fantasy, these two novels have several points in common. They both feature strong female characters who take action and exercise agency.  Both novels are grounded in careful historical research, and as a result, they provide readers with a sense of experiencing life in another place and time.  Finally, both are written by authors who belong to Storied Charlotte’s cadre of talented historical novelists. 

Tags: historical fiction
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