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PRISM COMICS HOSTS ONLINE PANEL “LGBTQ+ COMICS AND SOCIAL ACTIVISM” ON WONDERCON@HOME 2021

What: Prism Comics hosts a virtual panel on “LGBTQ+ Comics and Social Activism” on WonderCon@Home 2021

When: Saturday, March 27, 2021 at 11 am Pacific
Where: WonderCon@Home – https://www.comic-con.org/wca

Prism Comics Contact: Ted Abenheim, President, Prism Comics   ted@prismcomics.org

WonderCon@Home 2021 opens its virtual convention doors Friday morning, March 26, 2021 at 10 am Pacific with online exhibitors, virtual panels, virtual activities and more. Prism Comics is participating with a spirited virtual panel, LGBTQ+ COMICS AND SOCIAL ACTIVISM, debuting on Saturday morning, March 27 at 11 am Pacific. 

Are comics mightier than the sword? Can comics change hearts and minds and entertain at the same time? Now more than ever, LQBTQ+ comics creators are claiming their diverse identities, writing their own stories, and using the art form to build empathy and inclusion. Join Prism Comics, Moderator Justin Hall (No Straight Lines; Professor, California College of the Arts) and a diverse group of panelists as they discuss comics as a source of social power and community. Panelists include Tara Madison Avery (We’re Still Here, Alphabet; publisher Stacked Deck Press), Jennifer Camper (Juicy Mother, Founder, Queers & Comics conference), Trinidad Escobar (Of Sea and Venom, Tryst, Little Corn Fields), Lawrence Lindell (From Truth with Truth, Still, Couldn’t Afford Therapy, So I Made This Again; Co-Founder, TheBAYlies), and Anand Vedawala (100 Years From Now Our Bones Will Be Different; Executive Director, San Francisco Zine Fest).

To watch visit https://www.comic-con.org/wca/2021/athome/complete-programming

Scroll down to the Saturday, March 27, 11 am programming and click on LGBTQ+ Comics and Social Activism

The panel will remain online for viewing through and after WonderCon

PRISM COMICS is an all-volunteer nonprofit organization championing LGBTQ+ diversity and inclusion in comic books and graphic novels. Founded in 2003, Prism supports comics professionals, readers, educators and librarians and presents the annual Prism Awards for excellence in LGBBTQ+ comics in collaboration with the Cartoon Art Museum and the Queer Comics Expo. Visit prismcomics.org

WONDERCON@HOME: WonderCon is returning to your living room with panels, exhibits, contests, and more Friday, March 26 through Saturday, March 27, 2021! Presented  by Comic-Con International: San Diego.  Check https://www.comic-con.org/wca and subscribe to Comic-Con’s YouTube channel to join us @Home.

PRISM PANELISTS: Justin Hall, Moderator (he/him/his) – No Straight Lines; Professor, California College of the Arts https://www.justinhallawesomecomics.com

Tara Madison Avery (she/her/hers) – We’re Still Here, Alphabet; publisher Stacked Deck Press – https://stackeddeckpress.com

Jennifer Camper (she/her/hers) – Juicy Mother; Founder, Queers & Comics conference –

Trinidad Escobar (she/they) – Of Sea and Venom, Tryst, Little Corn Fields) – http://www.trinidadescobar.com                                                                                                                           

Lawrence Lindell (he/they) – From Truth with Truth, Still, Couldn’t Afford Therapy, So I Made This Again; Co-Founder, TheBAYlies – https://www.thebaylies.com      https://lawrencelindell.com

Anand Vedawala (he/him/his) – 100 Years From Now Our Bones Will Be Different; Executive Director, San Francisco Zine Fest –https://www.sfzinefest.org        https://www.anandvedawala.com

The post Prism Comics Hosts LGBTQ+ Panel at WonderCon@Home appeared first on The Nerd Element.

Ok folks, let's just jump into the fray!  Check out our latest episode of Afronerd Radio's Grindhouse broadcast-airing this Sunday at 6 p. m. eastern on the BTalk 100 network.  Your esteemed AFROnerdist hosts will bring their unique analysis to the following topics:  almost like clockwork during these COVID-19 times, another Black hip hop legend passes in an untimely manner-Humpty Hump himself, Shock G dies at 57; 

an interesting article from the New York Times highlights the recent (and somewhat expansive) spate of Black themes and characters receiving mainstream exposure in the sci-fi, fantasy, and geek genre space; another NYT piece from celebrated educator and graphic novelist, Dr. Eve Ewing, details her triumphs and travails as a Black female writer in a mostly white and protective comic nerd landscape; longtime friend of the "steam engine," filmmaker, Hilton Ruiz stops by to discuss his new project, Klans Rules.....think Klansmen and Black vampires....nuff said;         

A topic we failed to address during our last  Mid Week in Review broadcast, the new "wokeness" agenda many elite prep schools are enacting into their curriculum is upsetting some parents; Is it about education or indoctrination?;   according to TheMarySue.com, a new fan-funded campaign is afoot demanding that Marvel revise the Ironman character a la #RestoretheSnyderverse with Los Angeles billboard stating-#BringBackTonyStarkToLife......we're off to the races, people!; our thoughts about the HBO Max/theatrical release of Mortal Kombat; after the final episode of S1 of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, now we're hearing that a mainstream MCU Captain America 4 release is being produced (which may be separate from a Chris Evans MCU film....hmm).

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Call us LIVE at 508-645-0100. AFTER CLICKING ON THE HIGHLIGHTED LINK, GO DIRECTLY TO AFRONERD RADIO!!! 

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Also, Afronerd Radio's podcast format can be heard via BTalk 100 Pandora, Spotify and,  IHeartRadio....more formats to follow! 

Heyyy! It’s Kuya P and I got together a few of the NOC Family members’ Laura Sirikul & Mike Manolo to discuss… okay, FIGHT over Mortal Kombat out now in Theaters and HBO Max! Who will win? Place your bets now. CHECK OUT THE TRAILER HERE! Check out the Opening Seven Minutes! Featuring Joe Taslim […]

This week, a truly terrible decision came down from the Supreme Court in the case of Jones v. Mississippi, which affects a court’s ability to sentence a minor to life without parole. Previously, the court had ruled that mandatory sentences of life without parole for a minor were a violation of the 8th Amendment (being cruel and unusual punishment), and that that sentence could only be issued in extreme cases as determined under a separate assessment.

What this new ruling did was to do away with the need for that separate assessment, making life without parole an option for minors, just so long as it wasn’t mandatory—basically leaving it up to the individual discretion of a sentencer.

A punishment of life without the possibility of parole is something that arguably should not even exist for juveniles, and this ruling does away with the limitations that were at least in place around it.

Today’s decision is a huge blow against the movement to end juvenile life without parole. As Sotomayor correctly notes in her dissent, the court “guts” precedents that had strictly limit JLWOP. This is a major defeat for JLWOP reform. https://t.co/XS5CPsa2In pic.twitter.com/fTczLRlYqN

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) April 22, 2021

As Justice Sonia Sotomayor highlights in her dissent, not only does this new ruling step on the fairly recent precedent set, but in his majority opinion, Brett Kavanaugh pretends that precedent doesn’t even exist. Sotomayor said Kavanaugh, along with the other conservative justices who ruled in favor here, “rewrites [the case of precedence] Miller and Montgomery to say what the Court now wishes they had said, and then denies that it has done any such thing. The Court knows what it is doing.”

“It admits as much,” she adds, accusing the justices of “burying” that precedent as a mere footnote and “[urging] lower courts to simply ignore Montgomery going forward.”

“The Court is fooling no one,” Sotomayor writes.

It is truly amazing that Brett Kavanaugh of all people felt comfortable and confident writing this opinion, in which he declares that there is no need for a court to determine whether a young person is capable of being rehabilitated before being served such a harsh sentence. This is, after all, the man who (successfully) argued in front of the Senate that it was unfair to judge him as an adult by his actions (either alleged or admitted) as a teenager.

Kavanaugh hard in favor of life in prison for people who make mistakes as teenagers. Well isn’t that special

— Virginia Heffernan (@page88) April 22, 2021

When Dr. Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of assaulting her when they were both in high school, he and his supporters trotted out a lot of weak defenses, including and especially the idea that it is unfair to hold a man’s actions against him from when he was just a boy. As Kavanaugh told it, he was just a beer-loving teen whose view of the world and of women had been shaped by the era’s excessively misogynistic pop culture trends.

So what if his own high school yearbook bio made demeaning references to his female classmates, or that in college, he was part of a fraternity known for behaviors that “demean women” and an all-male secret society that was shut down after video surfaced of members chanting “No means yes, yes means anal” in front of the campus’ Women’s Center.

When all of this came out during Kavanaugh’s confirmation, what were we doing but trying to determine whether he had been or could be rehabilitated, or whether his actions as a youth constituted “permanent incorrigibility,” as Miller and Montgomery—the precedent Kavanaugh just overturned—said was necessary?

Of course, it’s not surprising that Kavanaugh sees the crimes and other reflections of his character as a youth as being different from those young people who would be affected by this ruling. He went to Yale and before that—during the time Blasey Ford says he attacked her—a posh prep school. Meanwhile, Black youth are five times more likely to be arrested than white youth (as a national average—in some states that rate is twice that), and Black and Latinx people are historically far more likely to receive harsher sentences than their white counterparts.

This new ruling, which leaves the discretion up to the sentencer, seems designed to only widen those gaps. And while Kavanaugh’s defense of himself boiled down to “boys will be boys,” this ruling gives no thought to those young people for whom real trauma may have played a role in the violent crimes they have been convicted of.

Jones v. Mississippi upholds the ruling in a lower court case, in which Brett Jones was sentenced to life without parole for killing his grandfather when Jones was just 15 years old.

Vanity Fair’s Bess Levin writes that in her dissenting opinion,

Sotomayor also reminds those reading that Jones was “the victim of violence and neglect that he was too young to escape,” with an alcoholic biological father who abused his mother and a stepfather who abused him with “belts, switches, and a paddle” and openly declared his hatred for Jones. When, per Sotomayor, Jones moved in with his grandfather—who abused him as well—he abruptly lost access to medications he was prescribed for mental health issues, including hallucinations. In 2004, when his grandfather tried to hit him, Jones says he stabbed him in self-defense.

Those are circumstances that Kavanaugh couldn’t possibly fathom, and while in an ideal world, Supreme Court justices would have both empathy and a respect for precedent, it is clear he has neither.

(image: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

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