[Phalanx]

Robert Kirkman, the writer of the well known ongoing zombie
"survival/drama" title 'The Walking dead',as well as other titles under IMAGE including 'Invincible'& 'Capes', now contracted to marvel for verious projects as well..has been accused of being a racist.

This is after events that took place in
'The Walking Dead #29'...not to give too much away in overall storyline, but one of the female characters is raped and beaten by a self appointed governor of a very...weird setup.
Anyhow, the female character is black. The "rapist" is white. She had been constantly portrayed as one of the most strong, independant characters in the comic, female or otherwise. The "rapist" is a villainous, corrupt sick bastard...nothing about the comic storyline had played that down at all, he's a detestable fuck (and later on ends up buying it in a spectacular fashion) But yeah, that's what happened.
The scene wasn't graphic or distastefully done, in fact, none of the sex scene was evident in the comic at all. You see the governor guy zipping himself up before taunting her, and walking away, leaving her chained. There's evidence from her face that she'd been beaten up, she was bruised and bloody.
At no point were any racial slurs said...in fact, no acknowledgement of race ever came into the printed word.
At the time, she was the ONLY female present in the smaller, split-off segment of the regular cast group portrayed over those few issues. It was her, and the two guys with her, who were incapacitated and held prisoner.

Yes, this scene indicated that this guy had beat up and raped a black chick. But really...is that NOT all?
I didn't even think beyond that point when I read it...maybe I'm just some white fucker that doesn't understand things from any perspective outside my own, but, to me, I see people labelling him as a racist is a bit much...considering he's in a very public medium, if his name goes to shit, a lot of good work may go down the drain with him.

He's one of my favourite artists, and currently writes some GREAT titles...so I actually read his letter column, to find out about this situation.

Written in to last issue "Letter Hacks" mailpage

"If you want the honest truth Mr Kirkman, a great deal of your white fans probably whacked off to that issue"
(that's the most recent anyhow)

Which is clearly just ignorant shit...not only regarding kirkmans fan base, but whites in general - and HE'S the racist? Sure...
All the same, he's been thrown quite a bit of this lately.
On his myspace & website too apparently - Seems like a while bunch of fuss made over next to nothing...I cannot help but think maybe just maybe his "accusers" just waiting for eggshells to get stepped on to launch an attack.
Were there complaints when the same character got her bloody revenge in a far more graphic nature than the acts against her? Was that racist against the white guy?
I say this not to generalise in any way at all - but clearly some people need to move on, and get their heads outta their asses.

Pretty sad...the guys one of my favourites, writes great storylines, and always gets a laugh...I hope this doesn't unneccesarily fuck with his career.