dc-logo-272x350This month has seen DC Comics talked about quite a bit, particularly in the realm of controversy. While I personally believe many of DC’s choices of late need to be discussed and evaluated, two these stories have truly grown to epic proportions that likely spawn from misunderstanding. Recently, J.H. Williams III and Haden Blackman have walked off their comic series, Batwoman, because of DC editorial decisions that have left them both rather frustrated. Specifically, the two men left because DC would not allow the series’ main character, Kate Kane, to get married to her fiancee, Maggie Sawyer. This was certainly a disappointing decision, in itself worthy of the many complaints and criticisms it garnished, but blew out of proportion when people decided to make the claim that DC chose not to allow this marriage because it involved a same sex couple. In reality, Williams has already denied this being the case, and it seems more that DC is just doing what I said they’ve been doing all along: disliking the idea of marriage in comics. Never-the-less, this misunderstanding has caught wind and hugely spread the belief that DC had made an anti-gay decision where they had not. Now, another comic misunderstanding from DC is making headlines.

Earlier this week, DC Comics began a contest that allowed aspiring artists a chance to draw a page for an upcoming DC comic. The comic would be Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti’s new Harley Quinn series. The contest provided a single page from the upcoming Harley Quinn #0, written by Palmiotti and Conner, which fans were to draw and submit. The best page would then be chosen by DC editorial and included in the book, alongside pages drawn by DC comic greats like Amanda Conner, Paul Pope, Bruce Timm, and more. Below is the full script shown on the contest page, which is page 15 from Harley Quinn #0, without any dialogue notes. Whether this was an edited down version of the script (so as not to spoil the rest of the story) or not is still a little unknown.HarleyQuinn 0

PAGE 15

4 panels

PANEL 1
Harley is on top of a building, holding a large DETACHED cellphone tower in her hands as lightning is striking just about everywhere except her tower. She is looking at us like she cannot believe what she is doing. Beside herself. Not happy.

PANEL 2
Harley is sitting in an alligator pond, on a little island with a suit of raw chicken on, rolling her eyes like once again, she cannot believe where she has found herself. We see the alligators ignoring her.

PANEL 3
Harley is sitting in an open whale mouth, tickling the inside of the whale’s mouth with a feather. She is ecstatic and happy, like this is the most fun ever.

PANEL 4
Harley sitting naked in a bathtub with toasters, blow dryers, blenders, appliances all dangling above the bathtub and she has a cord that will release them all. We are watching the moment before the inevitable death. Her expression is one of “oh well, guess that’s it for me” and she has resigned herself to the moment that is going to happen.

It actually seems like a rather funny page, albeit slightly out of traditional Harley Quinn’s personality. If anything, I want to make comparisons to Deadpool, but I’ll come back to that.

It did not take long for fans and critics to take this out of context and being rallying against DC for something many perceived as “sexist” and “horrible”. Most of these critics focus specifically on two things: the use of suicide and the fact that Harley was naked in a bathtub. In fact, panel 4 was the most referenced part of this contest in all those who chose to complain about it, and often did not include the direct description of the panel or context of the page in their blogs or reporting. From there, many readers never checked for context or to see the original contest before going off and spreading their anger. It was like a highspeed game of Telephone, with the tale getting darker and darker until the theme existed as “DC Comics is using Harley Quinn to sexualize suicide“.

HarleyQuinn 1While some readers may not agree with me, I felt this was far from what DC was doing. Admittedly, I believe those at DC choosing to run this contest chose a poor page to include in this contest, especially without full context, but it hardly seemed like the purpose was to sexualize or promote suicide. But to get a fair amount of various other views, I went to a large number of friends and fellow comic fans to ask their opinion. I asked those who had already heard of the story to read the original page and script, which led a fair amount to change their views on the entire thing. Admittedly, some continued to hold views that DC was “destroying Harley Quinn” with this limited page reference. But of the friends and fans I talked to who had not heard this controversy and just read the contest page and script page, most of them asked what the problem was. Some, familiar with the character of Harley Quinn, thought it was quite funny. But I must note that of the thirty plus people I asked who had never heard the controversy around this story until after reading the original contest page, none of them viewed this as promoting or sexualizing suicide. Furthermore, only one fan was offended by this script, and she claims it was because it was “very un-Harley like”.

Most of the argument for sexualization exists in the fact that people already are looking at the recent New 52 and Arkham video game versions of Harley, who has worn much more revealing and sexy outfits than her traditional one-piece initially worn in her television and comic debuts (though she spent a notable amount of time in both running around in a nighty too). They then jump further with the fact that panel 4 of the contest script opens with “Harley sitting naked…”, seemingly neglecting the fact that it follows those words with “in a bathtub”. I’m sure not everyone takes a bath naked, but I for one tend not to wear clothes when I’m bathing. Therefore, perhaps it is just me who doesn’t see a problem with a character being naked in a bath. But I suppose people will always find something to complain about.

The news eventually spread throughout the comic world, as blogs, twitter accounts, and news sites all started talking about it with a generally negative view towards DC. This is truly sad, because normally when a comic company offers young creators a chance to finally live their dream and step into the job of creating comics it is something to be celebrated. But as even the creators got involved, denouncing DC for this script, I could not help but feel this was in no way news. It was a bunch of people upset about something that would quickly pass. I could not have been more wrong as this soon reached mass media attention and groups like USA Today even began reporting on it.

Eventually this reached a point that the creators and company would have to respond. DC Publishers, Dan Didio and Jim Lee, went to twitter and attempted to calm the masses.

Eventually Jimmy Palmiotti even stepped up and attempted to take the blame, though I feel he should in no way have had to do such. Palmiotti stated on Facebook:

That the tryout Harley Quinn page went out without an overall description of tone and dialogue is all my fault. I should have put it clearly in the description that it was supposed to be a dream sequence with Amanda and I talking to Harley and giving her a hard time. I should have also mentioned we were thinking a Mad magazine /Looney Tunes approach was what we were looking for. We thought it was obvious with the whale and chicken suit, and so on, but learned it was not. I am sorry for those who took offense, our intentions were always to make this a fun and silly book that broke the 4th wall, and head into issue 1 with a ongoing story/adventure that is a lot like the past Powergirl series we did. I hope all the people thinking the worst of us can now understand that insulting or making fun of any kind was never our intention. I also hope that they can all stop blaming DC Comics for this since It was my screw up. The idea for the page to find new talent is an amazing one and we hope that can be the positive that comes forward from today on…that we get some new talent working in our field because of this unique opportunity.

Unfortunately, things continued to blow out of proportion. Yesterday, The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, American Psychiatric Association, and National Alliance on Mental Illness spoke out, issuing a statement saying:

September 12, 2013 - We are disappointed that DC Comics has decided to host a contest looking for artists to develop ways to depict suicide attempts by one of its main villains – Harley Quinn. According to the contest website: “Breaking into comics was never this fun. ;)”

There is nothing fun (or funny!) about suicide. It is a serious national health problem that has claimed the lives of more than 300,000 people in the United States over the past 10 years and takes an enormous toll on families, friends, classmates, co-workers and entire communities. Among youth and young adults, suicide is the third leading cause of death. More than 90 percent of people who die by suicide have a treatable mental illness such as depression, bipolar illness, schizophrenia and/or alcohol and substance abuse. Yet, only 38 percent of U.S. adults with diagnosable mental illnesses, and less than 20 percent of children and adolescents, receive needed treatment.

This week we commemorated the 11th annual World Suicide Prevention Day with the theme “Stigma: A Major Barrier for Suicide Prevention.” Too many people who die by suicide suffer in silence due to fear of the perceived stigma surrounding mental illness.

We believe that instead of making light of suicide, DC Comics could have used this opportunity to host a contest looking for artists to depict a hopeful message that there is help for those in crisis. This would have been a positive message to send, especially to young readers.

On behalf of the tens of millions of people who have lost a loved one to suicide, this contest is extremely insensitive, and potentially dangerous. We know from research that graphic and sensational depictions of suicide can contribute to contagion.

While we understand that this may have been unintentional, nonetheless this contest was a mistake in judgment. We hope the company acts responsibly and moves quickly to revise this contest. Our organizations would welcome the opportunity to be of assistance with such an action.

Robert Gebbia, Executive Director
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

Jeffrey Lieberman, M.D., President
American Psychiatric Association

Michael J. Fitzpatrick, Executive Director,
National Alliance on Mental Illness

As you can imagine with such a powerful statement being issued from three rather well recognized groups, known for trying to aid people, this has only exacerbated the news coverage and misunderstanding. This led to DC as a company finally making an official response, stating “The purpose of the talent search was to allow new artists an opportunity to draw a single page of a 20-page story. True to the nature of the character, the entire story is cartoony and over-the-top in tone, as Harley Quinn breaks the 4th Wall and satirizes the very scenes she appears in. DC Entertainment sincerely apologizes to anyone who may have found the page synopsis offensive and for not clearly providing the entire context of the scene within the full scope of the story.” Yet the dramatic controversy continues to unfold, even today, across news services, blogs, and social networking.

Batman Mad LoveNow this is the point where I have to fully chime in, as this has truly become news, but I have a strong opinion here. I would gladly rise up against DC if I truly felt they were doing something wrong here. Once again, I feel DC has made numerous questionable decisions of late, though most of these involve the creative end of their company and how they handle their creators. I do not believe this story is one based out of true controversy or intentional wrong doing. Perhaps DC should have chose a better scripted page for their contest and more immediately handled the controversy that followed. However, in no way can I imagine that anyone at DC truly woke up and said “let’s sexualize suicide” or even unintentionally held that as a goal. I don’t even believe that in sheer accidental form is the company or this comic script doing that. With context of the full page of the script, let alone the eventual full comic or knowledge of the creators behind it and their adult sense of humor, I feel it is quite obvious that this is just meant as a comical scene involving Harley Quinn. While it may take suicide lightly, that is hardly anything new and this would in no way be taking it to a notable extreme that should even garnish special attention. As for it sexualizing anything? That seems to be entirely in the mind of the beholder…and particularly one with a dirtier mind. The script states Harley is “sitting naked in a bathtub”, to which there is nothing sexual. Billions of people do that on a daily basis (or so we like to hope, in considering modern hygiene standards). The script does not describe that her body is revealed in anyway or that she is doing anything inappropriate, such as fondling herself or even showing any sexual gratification from the activity. In fact, the panel description defines her expression as one of depressing resignation. Despite what some rumors and poorly researched news sites say, she is not wearing a “chicken bikini” in earlier panels or doing things that I dare not repeat, but fans seem to have mentally come up with, in the whales mouth. It is a scene filled with dark humor, but in that it is innocent. In fact, if we replace Harley with Marvel’s Deadpool, I doubt there would be any complaints. In fact, people would probably find it quite funny…much as they did when Deadpool actually did such acts in his comics over the past decade, and specifically in Daniel Way’s final story arcs of the previous volume of Deadpool!

Deadpool Vol2 53 deadThe above tweet from writer, Gail Simone, points out a valid fact I thought of immediately upon reading the sample script: This sounds like a Deadpool concept. Simone, a current DC writer working on Batgirl, should know…she’s written Deadpool and even panels which specifically had him naked in a bathtub. Writer Daniel Way made Deadpool attempting to commit suicide a notable theme through his self-titled second volume, particularly around the issues released in 2011. Yet no one seemed to truly complain about that.

So where does this controversy really arise? I would argue it comes from several points. First off is a large number of fans who do not appreciate a more sexualized version of Harley Quinn, as seen in recent video games and her current New 52 incarnation. Therefore it is instantly presumed in any new Harley Quinn comic series, this is how the character will be written. Then there are those growing number of DC fans who are just against anything from the company and its New 52, which they feel betrays them as long time fans. I can relate to this group, as I was once a much bigger fan of the DCU than I am currently. Another group who likely fanned the fires are those who are looking for a new era of feminism in comics and don’t find the industry currently matching their views. But ultimately this seems to all come down to a misunderstanding of the contest and its single page of script posted on the website. From there, many angry readers expressed their version of what they read, leading to a very dark and unfair game of telephone that has created added stress on those currently working for DC, who likely have enough problems and controversy to deal with on their own.