The Hawkeye Intiative

One of the most socially important memes out there is perhaps the genderflip, and one of the FUNNIEST collections of this strategy is contained in the site, The Hawkeye Initiative. The blog's premise is that in order to identify sexism in the comic book/ graphic novel industry, all one has to do is to flip the gender of the image portrayed. So, if a female superhero's "Strong Female Pose" looks a little suspicious, you can bet that if you put male superhero, Hawkeye, in her place its inherent sexism will be exposed...

      

                         Here, Avengelyne gets the Hawkeye treatment from artist Deimos-Remus on Deviantart.com. 
                                                                        "Owww... got to get to the chiropractor..."

What's really cool about this site is that it allows comic book lovers of all stripes to create their own artwork in response to the ridiculousness of what the industry is publishing, and upload that content (along with the original example) and add it to the site. In this way, it is a curated collection of images that exposes and isolates the sexism embedded and naturalized in the images, and educates the community of comic book viewers to what is really happening within the genre.When the viewer can bring her new awareness to her reading of these stories she can then commit to buying the comic books that already offer better representations of its female characters, and use her purchasing power to demand the industry to produce less-demeaning alternatives. It also offers the aspiring artist a lot of insight into how to authentically empower her own female characters.


              

"Enter now... oof... I think my hip just went out...." (Gambit & The Externals/ Tony Daniels)

And more silly stuff. We humans are a funny lot. 

"Wait! Don't shoot muh package..."  (Jose Malaga/ Jeffrey Dean)

The 99

Like superheroes and comics? How about multicultural ones? What if they're Muslim? In a world where certain ideologies are often twisted so that they are perceived as representative of one narrow and intolerant viewpoint, here's one astonishing and ambitious effort to change that.  Using the comic book platform, Naif Al-Mutawa's goal is to create a new moral framework within Islam for confronting evil. With his story of The 99, he and his team hope to "smash stereotypes and battle extremism" while entertaining its readers with stories of hope and positive moral lessons. Here, in this TED talk, Al-Mutawa explains his creative mission, drawing several comparisons to the creators of Superman:

http://www.ted.com/talks/naif_al_mutawa_superheroes_inspired_by_islam.html

Fighting the lack of multi-cultural representation within the comic book world industry since 2010...

 From TED:

Widad the Loving, Bari the Healer, Mumita the Destroyer and friends, all working together to fight evil -- the virtues of Islam are embodied in the characters of the thrilling new comic The 99. Naif Al-Mutawa, a clinical psychologist by training, created the characters with a team of artists and writers to showcase traditional, tolerant and enlightened Muslim values in the guise of good old-fashioned superheroes, ordinary mortals who acquire special powers and crisscross the globe on missions.

In a crossover comic series with the Justice League in 2010, The 99 were saving the world alongside all-American heroes like Superman, Batman, and a fully-clothed Wonder Woman. Al-Mutawa's creative team also launched an animated cartoon series on the US cable channel, The Hub.

Seeing that this is a comic inspired by Islam, you're not likely to see any representative LGBT characters-- but then, it's taken DC a while to out Batwoman. However, this is still quite an interesting and inspiring project that holds promise to be a good force in the world.