“When W.E.B. DuBois created the idea of the megascope in the short story The Princess Steel (1909), I wonder if he would ever have dreamed that he was giving us a gift of not just one future but myriad futures. The megascope functions as a lens through which so many unheard voices can be heard. I am so honored and excited to present this first slate of books that we have lovingly curated. It’s a very robust, diverse, extraordinary collection of narratives that, I hope, will foster conversation, celebration, and connection,” says Jennings. “The book is an empathy machine and ABRAMS has dedicated so much of its existence to making cutting-edge, well-designed, beautiful books for everyone. I am humbled by the talent and dedication that Abrams ComicArts has poured into this line of books. My hope is that our audience will see themselves and their commonalities with others in these graphic messages from the minds and hands of some of the most amazing creators working in graphic fiction today.”When Megascope started, I made some comparisons to Milestone as perhaps the most recent, broadly successful attempt to run a comics line like this. It was a different time, the industry was wildly different, the business models were different... it's not really fair to compare the two, but Milestone's original comics line only ran for four years. So just the fact that Megascope has outlasted Milestone in that regard shows that Abrams has indeed committed itself to the project and, just by continuing to fund it, is doing more to promote diversity in comics that pretty much every other publisher.
They're not trying to be "the Black comics publisher." If you notice, the solicitation copy for most of their books don't even suggest that it's for people of color or specifically talking to the Black experience. Even passing references to the main characters' race are oblique at best. The stories are told by creators of color -- they're given the broad platform they're often denied -- and their stories are obviously going to be informed by their living in a not-always-tolerant-of-melanin society. But the focus of the stories isn't necessarily about that. (Although their upcoming title, Framing Emmett Till: Exposing Dark Fear, does seem to push against that trend.)
You know what Megascope reminds me of, as I think on it? The Black Panther movie. That was a film that was up/down/left/right/sideways Black. It was a Black-written, Black-directed, Black-acted, Black-designed movie about Africans set in Africa. But, it was sold to the viewing public at large as just another chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And most melanin-challenged people watched it in exactly that way. Which was fine. They saw some superheroics and cool CGI and witty catch phrases and all the trappings of another blockbuster Marvel movie. But the Black audience saw loads, loads more. I saw the movie on three separate occasions during its opening weekend and the audience reactions differed considerably from theater to theater, depending on what percentage of the audience was Black. A lot of references just sailed right over the heads of most white folks. That was okay, though, because there was still a solid story and characters for them to get into.
I actually know Jennings and several of the people on the advisory committee. I was pretty confident that they would do some impressive work and, judging by the books they've put out over the past five years, I'm pleased to say that confidence was indeed warranted. I'll be honest that not every title was precisely my cup of tea but that was a matter of taste more than anything; I could still see excellent stories with great storytelling even when I didn't personally care for the tale itself. Back when Megascope first launched, I said that I thought "there are going to be some really excellent books that will come out of there" and I was 100% correct on that front!
Congrats to John and everyone else at Megascope. Five years publishing a single line is no small feat, and I hope everyone involved takes a few moments to celebrate!
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