athenaltena:

Not to be an apologist for Jeph, but I was actually born in Northampton MA, where the comic is set, and I can tell you that it’s very, very white, by which I mean it’s 83.5% white as of the 2009 census (found here). It’s actually slightly more diverse than some of the surrounding areas (my elementary school class, for instance, had exactly one black girl and one Peruvian girl) but still, I’ve never had an issue with the way Jeph has designed the cast because that’s pretty much what Northampton actually looks like. I can already hear people saying “But they have robots and Hanners was born on a space station!” but while reading the comic I tend to see slightly changed versions of real place in Northampton, so while the setting is embellished it’s not embellished by that much and he’s still essentially writing about Northampton.

And it’s also true that Northampton and the surrounding areas has been criticized for not being especially welcoming to minorities, so I’m not going to pretend that there’s perfect equality out there either. Remind me to tell you about my cousin, who’s African American and Chinese, if you ever want to hear about how bad it can be out there.

I was actually really pleased when he added the new coffee shop with a more diverse set of employees, so I think he might realize this, and it is true that the town has become more diverse over the last several years. (As an aside the fact that there are more women than men in the comic actually matches up to reality too since the population is 56.9% female.)

I’m also a little dismayed by the sentiment I keep hearing that because Dora is bi she must be in a female/female relationship next. This seems to be part of a tendency to think that bi people aren’t “really” bi unless their relationships break down to exactly 50/50 men and women, and I find it really disturbing.

That’s just my two cents, and while I agree a female/female relationship would be nice to see in the comic I’m not sure I agree that there has to be one.

While I do have a problem with the fact that the cast is mostly white, I think it’s fair to say that I actually find the way the few PoC characters are written far more problematic. As I said, the two who have played the largest role in QC so far have both been largely important because of their relationships with white guys - Steve’s girlfriend, and Sven’s assistant. (Apologies for not talking about them by name - I can’t remember off the top of my head and the QC archives aren’t particularly easy to navigate.) Sven’s assistant was given no backstory and no character development and seems to have been given the boot; Steve disappeared from the strip not that long after starting to date his girlfriend, so she did, too (and when he turned up again she was gone!) Amir probably got the best and most consistent writing, but he hasn’t appeared for a very long time either. So while you can argue that the ethnic make-up of the cast reflects the setting, that doesn’t change the fact that the few PoC characters have piss-poor writing. (And yes, I know that Jeph has a habit of introducing new characters and then forgetting about them! But the new characters who have stuck around are the white ones.)

I agree that demanding that Dora is in a female relationship because otherwise she won’t “count” as bi is wrong, but that wasn’t my original point. I don’t think that Dora needs to be in a female relationship, I’d just like a queer relationship to be centre-stage for once. For a few strips there it looked like one was going to be. Instead, we’ve got a disappointed Tai and another straight date.