Comedian artist John Cassaday, recognized for his work on Planetary, Astonishing X-Males, and I Am Legion, died on September 9 on the age of 52.

Cassaday was born on December 14, 1971, in Fort Price, Texas.  A self-taught artist, he went to movie faculty and was a tv information director in Texas for nearly 5 years, then moved to New York in 1997 and took a building job so he may spend his evenings engaged on his portfolio. He introduced his portfolio to Comedian-Con Worldwide in San Diego that yr, and after that started getting calls from editors.

His early work included penciling the story “Justin” within the 1994 Boneyard Press title Invoice the Bull: One Shot, One Bourbon, One Beer #1 and “Juju Eyes” in Caliber Press’ Adverse Burn #28, printed in 1995.  In a tribute on Fb, Mark Waid remembers that Cassaday confirmed him his portfolio on the Massive Apple Comedian Con round 1996. “John was nice, he was well mannered and well-mannered, and when he confirmed me his portfolio, I additionally knew he was tremendously proficient for a newcomer,” Waid wrote.  “The following morning, I used to be having breakfast with author Jeff Mariotte, who talked about he was in search of an illustrator for his subsequent collection, Desperadoes.  Boy, did he say that to the appropriate man, as a result of I had simply the artist in thoughts.”  The “bizarre west” collection was Cassaday’s first ongoing collection.  Shortly after that, he and author Warren Ellis co-created the Wildstorm collection Planetary, which ran from 1998 to 2009.

Cassaday’s Marvel work included Captain America (2002) #1-6, Astonishing X-Males (2004) #1-24, Star Wars (2015) #1-6, and Uncanny Avengers (2012) #1-4.  He collaborated with French author Fabien Nury on the supernatural World Conflict II graphic novel I Am Legion, printed in English by Humanoids.  (The ebook was optioned in 2011 (see “‘I Am Legion’ Optioned”) however the movie was apparently by no means produced.)  In his Fb submit, Waid famous that Cassaday was engaged on an unannounced mission: “[A]s his writer for a short time at Humanoids, I had the nice and now melancholy pleasure of watching magnificent pages, his finest ever, are available slowly on his dream mission, an unannounced creator-owned multimedia collection that can now be his unfinished symphony.”

Along with ongoing work, Cassaday was a prolific cowl artist and infrequently contributed to anthologies.  In 2018, he grew to become Chief Artistic Officer at Humanoids (see “Humanoids Hires John Cassidy”). Dynamite printed a set of his work, The Dynamite Artwork of John Cassaday, in 2021 (see “Preview: ‘The Dynamite Artwork of John Cassaday’ TP”).

Cassaday received the 2005 and 2006 Eisner Awards for Finest Penciller/Inker, and Astonishing X-Males received the 2006 Eisner for Finest Ongoing Sequence.

Along with his comics work, Cassaday was an idea artist for the movie adaptation of Watchmen and directed an episode of Dollhouse, which was created by his Astonishing X-Males collaborator Joss Whedon.

If nation music is one huge glad household, Black ladies are its bastard daughters. The illegitimate youngsters that can by no means be acknowledged. Regardless of being born of its flesh, carrying the songs and traditions of the nation’s previous in its blood, Black ladies in nation have been denied legitimacy by the trade they’re so firmly part of. Maybe it’s as a result of there’s a worry that, if the nation music trade did really acknowledge Black ladies because the style’s heirs—to put in writing them down because the rightful descendants of an awesome American dynasty—it (and every little thing it stands for) would probably stop to exist.

This worry has been placed on full show, because the Nation Music Award (CMA) nominations have been introduced on September 8, and Beyoncè didn’t obtain a CMA nomination for Cowboy Carter. The message is obvious: If nation music is the music of America, then everybody who shouldn’t be straight, male, and white isn’t professional.

The album’s success tells a distinct story, after all. Since its launch, Cowboy Carter has dominated music, vogue, and politics. Beyoncé made historical past as the primary Black girl to high Billboard’s Scorching Nation Songs Chart. She can be the primary Black girl “to have led Billboard’s High Nation Albums chart checklist.” Black ladies in nation music, equivalent to Mickey Guyton, acquired a rise in streams due to the album. Searches for “ladies’s cowboy boots” and Western-wear impressed clothes spiked across the time of the album’s launch. Former First Woman Michelle Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris congratulated Beyoncé by way of social media concerning the album’s messaging.

It felt like a homecoming; for Beyoncé’s quest for legitimacy in nation music has lengthy been documented. Actually, the birthplace of Cowboy Carter is alleged to have been on the CMAs in 2016, the place Beyoncé alluded to her mistreatment on the awards ceremony throughout her efficiency of “Daddy Classes” with The Chicks. A CMA nomination, due to this fact, might’ve signified a shift in nation music’s household dynamics that has traditionally tormented the trade.

Learn Extra: Beyoncé Has All the time Been Nation

Nation music operates on a hierarchy composed of race, gender, and sophistication. And the issue is simply made worse when—within the face of backlash or critique—nation artists, executives, and insiders say the style is one, huge, glad household. An in depth knit neighborhood who protects and cherishes each other. An instance of conventional American values.

It’s the identical huge glad household who cuddled as much as Ronald Reagan when he described nation music as “one among solely a only a few kinds that we are able to declare as purely American.” Reagan, in flip,  welcomed the style’s largest stars to the White Home in 1983, to attraction to a burgeoning part of America, who felt defeated by the social actions of the Sixties and Seventies. 

However is it one huge glad household and “purely American” if the style’s high earners and gate keepers are predominantly white and male? When, like Reaganomics, the ability in nation music continues to trickle down? Equally to the results of these financial insurance policies, inequality inside nation music has elevated, and people with restricted entry to energy and capital within the trade really feel the brunt of it. The social contract of the nation music trade is rooted within the upkeep of de-facto segregation, a brand new age “separate however equal.” It enjoys Black sound on white performers, however doesn’t give Black nation musicians the assist and assets wanted to have a sustainable profession, with out adhering to the contract. Jim Crow by no means left America; he simply went nation.

So, what are Black ladies in nation music speculated to do? Who will advocate for Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy and Reyna Roberts—the Black ladies featured on “Blackbiird,” Beyoncé’s cowl of Paul McCartney’s ode to the Little Rock 9? Will change but once more be introduced by the numerous Black ladies within the nation music trade, who’ve expressed their disappointments of the trade’s incapability to vary, earlier than, throughout, and after the discharge of Cowboy Carter?

Their disappointment is simply and rightful. As a result of what kind of man appears to be like his daughter within the eyes, solely to disclaim her birthright. 

Despite this, there may be time for celebration and pleasure. The Warfare and Treaty, a husband and spouse duo, acquired a nomination for Vocal Duo of The 12 months on the CMA Awards. We’re additionally lower than one month away from GRAMMY Awards Nominations. Cowboy Carter could have its day within the solar there.

Even nonetheless, it’s fascinating—if slightly bittersweet— to think about what a Cowboy Carter CMA nomination would’ve regarded like for Beyoncé and nation music as a complete. In that actuality, would Beyoncé have succeeded in her quest of legitimacy?  Would a nomination have granted  her a seat on the desk? With that seat, would she have saved an additional for the Black ladies after her— and so forth and so forth? For Tanner Adell, for Brittney Spencer, for Tiera Kennedy and for Reyna Roberts. For the legacy of Linda Martell. Perhaps.

However perhaps it additionally doesn’t matter anymore. As a result of whether or not nation music grants them legitimacy or not, Black ladies will proceed on with out it. As a result of it’s the job of the youngsters to liberate themselves from their mother and father’ identification, in favor of crafting their very own. 

Black ladies don’t want to hunt validation from the establishments that dehumanize them. However as a substitute, grant themselves legitimacy on the premise of their humanity.

When Beyoncé was not among the many artists nominated for a CMA Award on Monday (Sept. 9), regardless of being the primary Black lady to prime Billboard’s Prime Nation Albums with Cowboy Carter and Scorching Nation Songs chart with “Texas Maintain ‘Em,” it instantly raised questions on nation music’s ongoing troubled relationship with Black artists, the CMA Awards’ nominating course of and whether or not or not Beyoncé’s crew had even submitted her music, given her sophisticated historical past with the nation group and the CMA Awards.

Let’s reply the final query first: It seems they didn’t have to submit. 

In contrast to many different awards reveals, labels, artists and their groups don’t submit entries for the CMA Awards. As a substitute, the roughly 6,600 voting members every obtain a write-in poll to listing their selections. Every member could make one nomination per award class. Due to this fact, Beyoncé’s label or crew didn’t have to submit her to be eligible. The exception is the one of the yr class, which is a pre-populated drop-down listing of all qualifying prime 10 singles from the nation charts famous within the standards. The write-in ballots are tabulated and the highest 20 vote recipients in every class find yourself on the second poll, except for entertainer of the yr, which consists of the Prime 15 vote recipients.

Moreover, all second-ballot candidates are reviewed by CMA, report label representatives, and the CMA Awards & Recognition committee to make sure that all they meet the factors for every award. The award standards relies on launch dates, chart exercise, and consumption peaks that occurred through the eligibility interval (July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024). The second poll is shipped to the CMA voters, and every member can vote for as much as 5 candidates in every class. CMA doesn’t reveal the write-in poll nominations or affirm whether or not any particular artist or work appeared on the second poll.

Although Billboard has not but seen a full second-round poll, Billboard seen a display screen shot for the second poll for tune of the yr that doesn’t embody “Texas Maintain ‘Em.” 

Beyoncé’s exclusion “doesn’t shock me,” says one Nashville govt, who wished to stay nameless. “There was actually just one single from the album that did something. She actually didn’t embrace the style, in contrast to what Submit Malone has carried out along with his album.” “Texas Maintain ‘Em” peaked at No. 33 on Billboard’s Nation Airplay chart.

Submit Malone obtained 4 nominations for “I Had Some Assist,” his duet with Morgan Wallen, that was a four-week No. 1 on Billboard‘s Nation Airplay chart and is featured on his Prime 200 and Prime Nation Albums chart-topping album, F-1 Trillion. Submit Malone infiltrated the native music scene, spending months in Nashville working with prime songwriters, recording the album in Nashville and popping up at many venues to play stay.

Nevertheless, one other Nashville govt, who additionally requested to stay nameless, mentioned they have been “shocked” that Beyoncé’s work obtained no nominations, “given the credit score to new Black creators and Linda Martell.” Cowboy Carter, along with Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, featured Martell, the primary Black lady to play the Grand Ole Opry in 1969, and quite a lot of rising Black artists, together with Brittney Spencer, Tanner Adell, Reyna Reynolds, Tiera Kennedy, Willie Jones and Shaboozey. 

Shaboozey, who obtained two nominations for brand spanking new artist of the yr and single of the yr for “A Bar Track (Tipsy),” took to Instagram and X to precise his thanks for being nominated, but in addition thanked Beyoncé, posting “Thanks @Beyonce for opening a door for us, beginning a dialog, and giving us one of the vital revolutionary nation albums of all time!”

Nation artist Rissi Palmer, who additionally hosts Apple Music’s “Coloration Me Nation” radio present, mentioned what many others expressed on social media when she posted on X, “Nicely… these noms set a extremely attention-grabbing precedent. The message is extraordinarily loud.” She later posted, “I feel {that a} bigger dialog ought to be had about the truth that no different Black lady or lady of coloration may even qualify for sure CMA awards, and why that’s.” The only of the yr class is the one class that requires reaching a sure chart place with a purpose to be eligible. Earlier this yr, the CMA Awards eradicated the requirement for tune of the yr.

In June, three months after the March 29 launch of Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé supplied a prolonged assertion to The Hollywood Reporter concerning the challenge and its reception. “When you’re breaking down obstacles, not everybody is prepared and open for a shift. However once I see Shaboozey tearing the charts up and all the attractive feminine nation singers flying to new heights, inspiring the world, that’s precisely what motivates me,” she mentioned. ““I’m honored to introduce so many individuals to the roots of so many genres. I’m so thrilled that my followers trusted me. The music business gatekeepers will not be completely happy concerning the thought of bending genres, particularly coming from a Black artist and positively not a girl.”

In 2016, Beyoncé’s efficiency of “Daddy Points” on the CMA Awards with The Chicks (then nonetheless the Dixie Chicks), quite a lot of commenters on social media supported the looks, whereas others made unwelcoming feedback.

In March, shortly earlier than Cowboy Carter’s launch, Beyoncé posted on Instagram that the album was “born out of an expertise that I had years in the past the place I didn’t really feel welcomed… and it was very clear that I wasn’t,” she mentioned, though she didn’t particularly cite the CMA Awards look. “However, due to that have, I did a deeper dive into the historical past of Nation music and studied our wealthy musical archive.”

Beyoncé’s consultant didn’t reply to a request for remark and the CMA declined to remark.