#Book says it was published in 2010 so I'm going to assume I was in my early twenties when I first read it

[jhessail]

Today's bad art is brought to you by a person who wants to reread books

[bookwyrminspiration]

hello i brought up the terrible cultural representstion in keeper to my parents and they said it was probably the publisher pushing for it. dyou have any thoughts? you seemed like the best person to ask about this

I don't know if I'm the best person, but I can certain share some thoughts about it. I'm assuming by cultural representation you're referring to the lack of diverse characters--and subpar representation/inclusion of the few characters who are diverse? (this is a bit long, so warning)

While I doubt it was the only thing, it is likely publishing affected the diversity; this was a book pitched and sold in the early 2010s in an industry dominated by white women--I found an article from 2016 saying about 79% of publishing staff are white. The same survey in 2019 found 76% were white, so while I can't find one more recent at the moment, it's safe to say it's still a very white-dominated industry.

Keeper is published by Simon & Schuster, and I found a few various sources talking about them, but nothing significant enough to override what I've already cited (which applies to them as well). You can check out this site citing a few employee statistics about them, if you're curious.

If you look through the people Shannon thanks in the acknowledgments of her books--Like Laura Rennert, Lara Perkins, Taryn Fagerness, etc.--the people she's working with and surrounded by appear to be predominantly white women (though I didn't look up every single name, and I'm specifically focusing on book 1 right now), and the thing about agents and editors and all the like is that they'll be much more incentivized to work with/sell/buy a book that they connect to emotionally, which in this case is white stories.

The same applies to authors, which I think is another aspect of the supbar diveristy. Shannon's--as far as I know--an abled allocishet non-hispanic white American woman. Authors like to write stories they connect to and see themselves in (which isn't inherently a bad thing), and for her that means stories with straight, cis, abled white characters and heavy American influence. And this story is scouted and enjoyed by white agents/editors/publishers/etc. (I don't know enough about them to truly discuss their identities, I'm coming to conclusions based on suggestive evidence, but may be wrong).

I can't tell you what's going on in their heads, but it's entirely possible that the lack of diversity wasn't a conscious choice, but rather something that none of them prioritized or noticed. Publishers appear to have some sort of diversity "quota" as well, not going beyond it. This opinion piece briefly mentions it amongst the rest of its discussion, how white publishers at Simon & Schuster questioned whether they needed to bid to publish a black author when they already had another. This is, however, one anecdotal instance and may not be representative. My point in including it is to be aware of what the scene may be and how, even though Shannon is white and therefore more likely to be published, a story with increased diversity may not be seen as necessary or be pushed for. Instead, the diversity in their company can come from other authors. So unless Shannon makes that conscious effort herself, she won't be punished for the lack.

That all discusses this from the perspective of including diversity. There's also the matter of the diversity that is there, which has been dissected and commented on by people far more knowledgeable than me. The two are related, and there are likely similar causes.

Once again, Shannon doesn't have the personal experience or knowledge of the various characters/backgrounds she includes. And her editors/publishers likely don't either, which may explain in part what we see in the books. I don't know whether keeper has sensitivity readers or not, but if there aren't any that could also contribute.

Improvements have been made with time--there are more characters of color than when we started--but that doesn't make these improvements without fault. So I think she is making an effort, but it's falling short. And if the prior observation about how they can meet their diversity quota with other authors continues here, there may not be significant push from her publishers/editors etc. to truly focus on quality diverse representation. They're committed to her story at this point and won't stop her, but they don't need her to do much, perhaps? And Shannon has, to an extent, backed herself into a corner because so much of her story was established without diversity early on, and there's only so much she can add later--we see now how the cast is started to get very crowded and complicated with all its additions, and her focus is on Sophie regardless.

There's a lot going on and I'm only touching the tip of the iceberg--and I am not an expert or professional of any kind, so take my observations and hypotheses with a grain of salt--but based on what i know, publishers likely do play a factor. But Shannon herself plays a role as well; the fact of the matter is the story she wrote isn't very diverse. And it was appealing to certain publishers, because the industry is abled straight white woman dominated. So there is a lack of representation, and the representation there feeds into stereotypes and generally isn't good.

No one cause can be blamed, but instead the intersection of various reasons contribute to the diversity issues--that's my conclusion, but don't just take it from me. Think about it for yourself and listen to others as well. I don't quite know where I'm going with all this, but hopefully some of this satisfies your questioning

If not or if anyone would like to discuss it further--including correcting me on anything I may have missed or insensitively said--my inbox is always open.

[endoftheworldhere]

Thank you for inviting me to your tumblr :) As you know, I'm desperately trying to avoid the actual books, both for "spoilers" (since I'm basically reading your story like one would any novel) and because it's one thing to start a story then a character you like dies. It's another to go into it knowing your favourite character will die - and I'm not sure I can do that lol. I suppose it also depends how much Jordie is actually in the book(s). Given y'all have a whole tag about him living, I'm leaning towards he's in there enough to be loved. But, hey, like I said, there's a whole character in one of my fandoms who is beloved and has the equivalent of a "Jordie lives" tag and he's based off 1 line, soo….. But I'm still tempted because I like your story so much (and I kinda maybe have a fic idea… <.< >.>) Although, I will read the wiki if I end up getting hopelessly confused.

I do have 1 question: I've assumed my guess on Kaz's identity is correct, bc it just makes too much sense not to be. Does he have a redemption arc in the books? Or is he just bad/morally grey? Or is my question itself wrong because I'm missing too much context? I don't know if I could do both "my favourite character is going to die and I know this before ever interacting with the source material" AND "my other favourite character went 'evil'/cruel/maybe a bit psychopath not really sure and stays that way" - especially not if they're introduced as young children (which I'm assuming they are lol, lot of assumptions here).

Buuut, I also recently found out that the Six of Crows books aren't the first ones? So maybe I could read the Shadow and Bones trilogy and not have to deal with those things? Just to get a flavour of the canon world. And then I also saw that there's some companion books, like the one on the saints - which sounds interesting, but I would probably find infuriating, given what you've written of the Church in your story ROFL - and the one with in-world fairy tales - THAT sounds really good. I might do that one even if I don't ever give the actual canon stuff a try.

You're welcome! I love reading your comments and answering your questions.

Jordie has a decent presence in the books for what his role is--we have a couple of flashback chapters that were the basis for the first two chapters of a guest and Kaz continues to remember him/imagine his presence. Enough to get a decent sense of who he was, I think (though of course fandom loves to run wild with the scraps of characterization we get as a general rule)

As for Kaz--you're right about his identity (probably pretty obvious from the tags in retrospect, since his name on Ao3 is Kaz Brekker) and in the books he is a main character/narrator. You have to remember that the information you got last chapter wasn't really coming from the most reliable sources-a lot of it was rumor and gossip and trying to shock/scare Jordie--Kaz is complicated, but not a villain, and better than he likes to think he is.

You can certainly read Shadow and Bone if you want and it'll help you understand the world but it's...it's got a lot of cool concepts and interesting side characters and the Netflix adaptation is fantastic but the books themselves were some of Bardugo's first published work and it kind of shows. They're very much of the early-mid 2010s YA (I think I read them in 2015?). If your taste goes that way, I say go for it, but otherwise I would just recommend watching the Netflix series to get a primer on the world/characters. I haven't read the tie-in stuff myself but if it's recent it's probably pretty good.

If you do have a fic idea though I'd love to hear about it because this fandom has consumed my life for like the past several years and is one of the few things keeping me sane through law school lol :D

[comicweek]

When I broke into comics a little shy of 10 years ago, I spent about 2 years professionally in the closet. I'd been out in my personal life since 8th Grade, but when I started writing full-time it was easy to let people just assume what they're going to assume. There were characters that I wanted to write, and opportunities I wanted, and I was fucking terrified that if I was open about myself that I would never get those opportunities. And I hate to say it, but blending into the mostly straight-guy world of comics circa 2010 didn't make me feel much better about my chances. You learn a lot when you hear what people say when they don't know that somebody "different" is listening. But it started to fuck with my head and my mental well-being to not be open about myself in my work life and with work friends who were becoming real life friends. So I finally said fuck it and came out in my professional life, even if it meant that the powers that be might not ever let me write Robin, or ever let me write Batman on my own. The industry has changed a lot in the last ten years, but there are a lot of ways in which it hasn't. Especially on the superhero end of things. And having been out and fairly prominent in the industry for years now, it can be easy for me to forget how sure I was that being open with myself would only close doors in the very recent past.... And this isn't like... a happy story where I was WRONG about my assumptions about the industry and when I came out it was all hunky dory and it never stood in my way.It's NOT all hunky dory, and there were road bumps along the way I never would have been able to weather without some aggressive advocates with my best interests at heart. Which is all to say that this book is important because there's still a lot of hate and resentment in the world and it is important for people to see characters they look up to, creators they look up to, and companies they look up to championing their interests. In the very, VERY recent past a book like this would have been impossible. So it's all the more special that it's here. I'm not going to pretend that it's some huge daring political act, but it still matters. I am proud to be who I am, I am proud to be a part of this book, and I am proud that DC Comics is publishing it.

- James Tynion IV on Writing Comics in and out of the closet for the past 10 years or so.

[jimzub]

Hi Jim, do your Image series' make money? And if so how long did it take for the issues / trades to start generating profit? Also, any tips on how to make the Image model work for modestly successful or new creators? I'm assuming it's consistency.

I’ve actually written extensively about this over on my main site here:

http://www.jimzub.com/creator-owned-economics-moving-market/

Check the right-hand column for a list of Creator-Owned Economics articles.

Summary: Skullkickers didn’t make money for quite a while. Wayward is doing much better.

I self-financed Skullkickers through most of its run and we had to take breaks to build up the financial buffer with other projects. Wayward has been profitable for its entire run so far and allowed Steven, the artist and co-creator, to make it his full time job since 2014.

Part of that came down to the market (Image creator-owned books were hot in 2014), part of it the books themselves, and part of it probably came down to visibility/reputation. In 2010 I wasn’t known for my writing. In 2014 I had a bunch of work under my belt. 

I wish I could give you a simple formula about how much you should make and how long it will take. The simple reality is that these are creative endeavours and that means it’s a mixture of quality, consistency, marketing, and whims of readers/retailers/reviewers. If anyone knew how to hit the bulls-eye every time with those factors they’d be much richer than I am.

That’s not to say that it’s completely random. Quality is the first and biggest part of that equation. A solid concept well executed has the best shot at grabbing attention and gaining good word of mouth. Having other people go to bat for the series is more valuable than you having to endlessly beat the drum for yourself.

Making money on a creator-owned series is a mixture of money you get from the publisher coupled with direct sales at conventions, expanding the readership in a grassroots way. Even when Skullkickers wasn’t making much money in comic shops, I was hand-selling the heck out of it at shows, helping to bridge the financial gap.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN THINGS

And of course if they continued to spam me or a network I was part of, Hostex itself would be recognized as a spam term. Fortunately it's usually the least committed founder who leaves. But in practice it would not be likely to. Can you do more of that? Painting has prestige now because of great work people did five hundred years ago. And this form of list may be more useful in practice. You shouldn't ignore them, because I find new books to read en route. Worse for Apple, these apps work just fine on other platforms that have immediate approval processes. If you work fast, maybe you could have it done tonight.1 It was really close, too. For outsiders this translates into two ways to win. What used to be limited to those who could get them published.

Object code? You can't fight market forces forever. It discovered, of course, is that you will yourself misunderstand your work.2 These include college admissions, because it's a game you can't lose. If you're thinking about turning in some new direction and your users seem excited about it that they explore most of its possibilities in the first couple generations.3 And it's largely because they got more of the best people that Google and Apple. Worse still, instead of assuming you can rely on your intuitions as you ordinarily would, and b look at the Apple garage. 09019077 enter 0.4 I can't write things down, worrying about remembering one idea gets in the way of having the next.5 The fifteen most interesting words in this spam are: qvp0045 indira mx-05 intimail $7500 freeyankeedom cdo bluefoxmedia jpg unsecured platinum 3d0 qves 7c5 7c266675 The words are a mix of stuff from the headers and from the message body.6 Fortunately the number of false positives will not tend to be smart, so the two qualities have come to be associated.

06080265 prices 0. Every designer's ears perk up at the mention of that game, because it's probably wrong. Those are actually the elite of failures. When we started it, there wasn't any; the few sites you could order from were hand-made at great expense by web consultants. The potential of a new platform: yeah, it's popular and cheap, but not if you're working on technology. Yes and no.7 In this scenario, spam would, like OS crashes, viruses, and popups, become one of those plagues that only afflict people who don't bother to use the word unfair to describe this kind of lonely squirming to avoid it will increasingly be the fate of anyone who wants to get things done. Leonardo or Bellini or Memling, who all had the additional encouragement of honest standards. And this would be a 900-page pastiche of existing popular novels—roughly Gone with the Wind plus Roots. You could use a Bayesian filter to rate the site just as you would an email, and whatever was found on the site could be included in calculating the probability of the containing email being a spam, which I calculate as follows: let g 2 or gethash word good 0 b or gethash word good 0 b or gethash word bad 0 unless g b 5 max. Recognizing nonspam features may be more useful in practice. That's just a theory.

Notes

If language A has an operator for removing spaces from strings and language B doesn't, that's not as completely worthless as a note to self. He adds: Paul Buchheit points out, if the sender happens to compensate for another. It would probably never have that glazed over look.

It's a lot of people who lost were us. I remember are famous flops like the iPad because it was worth it, is deliberately vague, we're going to work on what you learn via users anyway. But not all, economic inequality is not whether it's good enough to defend their interests in political and legal disputes. They're motivated by examples of how you spent your summers.

If anyone wanted to than because they could to help the company goes public. In the original text would in 1950. Their inexperience makes them better: reading a talk out loud at least 150 million in 1970. But if you're flying straight and level while in fact I read most things I find I never get as deeply into subjects as I know of no counterexamples, though it be in most high schools.

In practice the first meeting. Macros very close to the minimum you need but a lot online.

But that being so, you waited too long to launch. Pliny Hist. Experienced investors know about it. It didn't work out a preliminary answer on the spot, so the best intentions.

Some translators use calm instead of admitting frankly that it's fine to start software companies, summer 2010.

What you learn about books or clothes or dating: what determines rank in the Sunday paper. They could have used another algorithm and everything I say the rate of change in how Stripe felt.