hawkeye 019 | david aja
Tag: matt fraction
why deaf clint barton is important
ok, all you boys and girls who read comics, listen up.
if you read matt fraction’s hawkeye comics, you know that clint barton has been stabbed in the ears with arrows, and as a result, is now deaf. furthermore, if you read the comics, you know that today was the release of the asl issue.
in case you don’t know me, i’m hard of hearing. i grew up hearing, and my hearing wound up getting fucked up the older i got. now i’m 20 years old and wear hearing aids. my signing isn’t as good as it could be since i’m surrounded by hearing people who won’t learn asl to communicate with me, but i use it as often as i can.
when i read the asl issue, i found a superhero that i could actually relate to, an actual, real, human being, flawed superhero that d/Deaf/hoh people can relate to and understand, particularly those people who have lost their hearing as they’ve gotten older the way i have. this asl issue speaks more than anyone can understand.
admittedly, the issue didn’t quite use proper signs all the time, and the grammatical structure was more english than asl (asl has a very different grammar syntax), but for now, it was enough. it was representation. it was a step forward. (and why was clint talking on the phone if he’s deaf? honey, if you deaf, you deaf. i’m hard of hearing, and i can’t hear shit on the phone. like, i get he was letting jess know that it was him talking, but son, you are deaf and cannot hear her response. but that’s ok, it’s just details.)
so marvel, you don’t know how much your asl issue meant to me, but i’d like to thank you, matt fraction, and everyone else involved with this from the bottom of my heart. thank you for giving representation to a group of people who don’t really get very much representation at all. thank you for for showing me a superhero who gets it.
deaf clint barton is important.
disabled superheroes are important.
disabled superheroes getting back on their feet when their disability makes things rough for them is important.
disabled superheroes trying to figure out how they fit into the abled world around them is important.
deaf clint barton is important.
This. All of this.
my proceeds all go to the signing time foundation • men’s and women’s sizes available now
thanks nicole and everyone at welovefine for the extraordinary coordination and hustle
kath-ballantyne and I bought ours of this yesterday! With international shipping, it came to just under $40, which is on the pricey side for one shirt, especially for us, but we really really wanted to own it. Lots of other beautiful Hawkeye themed shirts over there, too.
black widow #1 & hawkeye #1
why deaf clint barton is important
ok, all you boys and girls who read comics, listen up.
if you read matt fraction’s hawkeye comics, you know that clint barton has been stabbed in the ears with arrows, and as a result, is now deaf. furthermore, if you read the comics, you know that today was the release of the asl issue.
in case you don’t know me, i’m hard of hearing. i grew up hearing, and my hearing wound up getting fucked up the older i got. now i’m 20 years old and wear hearing aids. my signing isn’t as good as it could be since i’m surrounded by hearing people who won’t learn asl to communicate with me, but i use it as often as i can.
when i read the asl issue, i found a superhero that i could actually relate to, an actual, real, human being, flawed superhero that d/Deaf/hoh people can relate to and understand, particularly those people who have lost their hearing as they’ve gotten older the way i have. this asl issue speaks more than anyone can understand.
admittedly, the issue didn’t quite use proper signs all the time, and the grammatical structure was more english than asl (asl has a very different grammar syntax), but for now, it was enough. it was representation. it was a step forward. (and why was clint talking on the phone if he’s deaf? honey, if you deaf, you deaf. i’m hard of hearing, and i can’t hear shit on the phone. like, i get he was letting jess know that it was him talking, but son, you are deaf and cannot hear her response. but that’s ok, it’s just details.)
so marvel, you don’t know how much your asl issue meant to me, but i’d like to thank you, matt fraction, and everyone else involved with this from the bottom of my heart. thank you for giving representation to a group of people who don’t really get very much representation at all. thank you for for showing me a superhero who gets it.
deaf clint barton is important.
disabled superheroes are important.
disabled superheroes getting back on their feet when their disability makes things rough for them is important.
disabled superheroes trying to figure out how they fit into the abled world around them is important.
deaf clint barton is important.
This. All of this.
Hawkeye 19 link and ASL translation!
One upon a time, I had a deaf friend that I learned basic ASL to be able to communicate with. Hawkeye 19 is right up my ally, so I figured I’d post this for people that want to know what’s being said in this issue.
Here’s a download link to the comic via my Dropbox.
PLEASE READ THE ISSUE WITHOUT THE TRANSLATION FIRST! Matt Fraction stated that he wanted readers to feel the sense of confusion and loss along with Clint, so read it as it is first, then go back with the translation. ASL translation is under the cut.
HAWKEYE #19
MATT FRACTION
• DAVID AJA (A/C)
“Rio Bravo” – PART 4
• The sense-shattering fallout of the Clint vs. the Clown — Clint Barton has been deafened!
• With the Barton Brothers this battered and bloodied, surely they’ll make easy pickins for the Bros, right? Bro? Seriously?
• If we do our jobs right THIS time, this issue will be the Dog Issue of Sign Language issues
This is so important. This is so damn important.
Not only is Fraction undoing the retcon of other writers who took away Clint’s disability, but he’s taking that disability back to his childhood before it originally started in classic canon.
This is so important because Fraction is refusing to let Clint’s disability be overwritten anymore so long as he has hold of the tenure.
YES THIS.
I have been upset that they ~magically fixed~ Clint’s hearing since I found out he was ever deaf, and the idea that he’s been hard of hearing since a childhood “accident” (aka – you know it was his dad, I am sure it was his dad) that was unable to heal fully because y’know HIS EARDRUMS WERE DAMAGED is just. Yes good. Especially since Fraction said he’s been writing Clint as if he’s been hard of hearing since he was a kid, and getting “fixed” only took him back to the level he was at before the sonic arrow incident.
This is so important to me for reasons I can’t even entirely express and basically this is the best thing and I’m going to cry while I read it.
This explanation that he’s been hard of hearing all along would also make me feel better about the “Spanish-sounding stuff” that turns out to be Russian (probably), as if Clint Barton wouldn’t recognize Spanish (living in BedStuy? Please.) or Russian (working closely with a Russian ex-pat and also an intelligence agency employee).
Fraction has explicitly said that’s what was intended by those captions/speech bubbles/whatever you want to call them. I wish it’d been more explicit in the comics themselves, but that was what he was going for.
I AGREE WITH THE PERSON WHO REPLIED TO MY ASK. I don’t know… how to reply to that. But I just wanna say that I agree with evilkneazle so hard! :DD
So hey @evilkneazle this happened. ^
Okay, so I talked to my pal who’s a professional interpreter and she says she basically agrees with this.
Her actual commentary: “You’re exactly right: “Stupid” and “Clint.” I can’t really extrapolate more than that without having context, but I am wondering what the question mark is all about. [I then sent her the whole page, rather than just the bottom couple panels] I think maybe it’s Barney asking Clint, “Are you stupid or something?” Clint hasn’t been involved in his own treatment or shown any interest and Barney is obviously fed up. It feels like spelling his name is like when your mom would get so mad she would throw in your middle name.”
That last part feels so right. That perhaps Barney is spelling it out in frustration, though it’s also possible that Clint doesn’t have a name sign.
Anyway, thanks, @whichfandomdoipick and @actuallyclintbarton! Good convo!
Whether he’s just asking if Clint’s stupid or he’s doing the “mom using your middle name” thing, this makes a hell of a lot of sense. Hooray!
One of Marvel’s Avengers Turns to Sign Language. The story strives to connect readers with what he is experiencing: when he can’t hear, the word balloons on the page are blank. The comic also makes extensive use of sign language, but provides no key to interpreting them. “If nothing else, it’s an opportunity for hearing people to get a taste of what it might be like to be deaf,” Mr. Fraction said.
do you ever just use an emoticon or phrase ONCE and then all of a sudden it makes up 99% of your daily vocabulary
I CANNOT stop saying ‘seems legit’. It’s a plague.
I never used to use the word ‘bro’. Then I went to New Zealand for two weeks. Eight months later, I still can’t stop.
It’s true. (is what I say all the time, more in person than online I think, but I use it so much that my ex-boyfriend asked one of our interpreters how to say it in Russian so he could tell me, when we were in Ukraine like 10 years ago, sooooo… yeah.)
Re: the ‘bro’ thing, that’s why when I read Fraction’s Hawkeye, the tracksuit mafia all have Kiwi accents in my head. If Fraction ever writes any of them saying ‘choice’, it’ll be incontrovertible.
knitting in the dark 