Hard NOC Life returns with a look at the phenomenon that is Disney’s Big Hero 6. Joining Keith on the panel are Christelle Gonzales (@christellexoxo), the newest NOC to join the fam, and comics artist David Nakayama (@davidnakayama), who penciled the 2008 Big Hero 6 comic series for Marvel and co-created Wasabi No Ginger and Fredzilla with Chris Claremont.
If you haven’t seen it yet, Disney and Marvel just released the first trailer to this winter’s upcoming Big Hero 6.
I first was introduced to Big Hero 6 while interviewing artist David Nakayama in July 2008 at San Diego Comic Con. I had asked Nakayama what he was working on for his next project, and he told me about the Big Hero 6 mini-series he was working on for Marvel in a story written by one of his all-time heroes, Chris Claremont. Set in Japan featuring a group of Japanese superheroes, Nakayama provided details about how they really wanted to emphasize a lot of Japanese style into the art of the five-issue mini-series. I was excited to hear about Big Hero 6, and picked up issue #1 a few months later when it was released.
In the 1982 graphic novel X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, Kitty Pryde gets in a fight with a boy in her dance class. The dance instructor, Stevie Hunter, along with Peter and Illyana Rasputin, who come to pick Kitty up from class, break up the fight and discover that the boy hates mutants (ignorant that Kitty is a mutant, herself). He calls Kitty a “mutie-lover,” but Stevie, eager to diffuse the situation, laughs it off and tells Kitty “they’re only words, child.” The boy runs off before Kitty screams at Stevie “suppose he called me a nigger-lover, Stevie? Would you be so damn tolerant then?!”
Kitty storms off full of teenage rage, but we have to turn the page to see Peter’s awkward apology to Stevie, reassuring her that Kitty didn’t mean what she said. It’s only after Peter leaves that Stevie says, “of course she did… she meant every word… and she was right,” with a tear and a clenched fist. It’s the first and last time we see Stevie in the comic. But she stole the whole damn show.
“The X-Men are hated, feared and despised collectively by humanity for no other reason than that they are mutants. So what we have here, intended or not, is a book that is about racism, bigotry and prejudice.” —Uncanny X-Men writer Chris Claremont, 1981
I first was introduced to Big Hero 6 while interviewing artist David Nakayama in July 2008 at San Diego Comic Con. I had asked Nakayama what he was working on for his next project, and he told me about the Big Hero 6 mini-series he was working on for Marvel in a story written by one of his all-time heroes, Chris Claremont. Set in Japan featuring a group of Japanese superheroes, Nakayama provided details about how they really wanted to emphasize a lot of Japanese style into the art of the five-issue mini-series. I was excited to hear about Big Hero 6, and picked up issue #1 a few months later when it was released.
