Post Comment

I’ve started to wonder whether what I read as a child wasn’t more important. […] And then there was Pif le chien, a comic book published by Editions Vaillant and sponsored by the Communist Party. I realize now when I reread it that there was a Communist bent to many of Pif’s adventures. For example, a prehistoric man would bring down the local sorcerer in single combat and explain to the tribe that they didn’t need a sorcerer and that there was no need to fear thunder. The series was very innovative and of exceptional quality.

—French novelist Michel Houellebecq, interviewed in The Paris Review No. 194

Read Comments (8)

Bigger than the Birch Society, YAF and the Americans for Constitutional Action all rolled into one, there has recently emerged on the contemporary scene a new potentially right-wing organization of formidable power—the Merry Marvel Marching Society. This extremist group, cleverly disguised as an innocent venture in comic-book publishing, is busily undermining the minds of our nation’s youth and indoctrinating them in a set of beliefs which can only be described as patriotic and wholesome. As Perry White of the old Superman comics would say—“Great Caesar’s Ghost!” What is the world coming to?

Yes, unbeknownst to the Liberal Press, the minds and hearts of America’s college youth are being subtly spirited away by a group of tongue-in-cheek artists and writers in New York City.

Thanks again to the indefatigable researches of Sean Howe, another historical oddity has been drawn to our attention: a 1966 piece on the (admirable, in the author’s view) right-wing subtext of Marvel Comics. It was originally published in The New Guard, the official publication of the Young Americans for Freedom, and the author, David Nolan, went on to co-found the Libertarian Party and is currently campaigning for a senate seat in Arizona.

This is interesting from multiple angles, whether considered in the context of Marvel legend Jack Kirby’s JFK liberalism, Alan Moore’s condemnation of superhero comics as connected to American militarism, or the current climate of “realistic” superhero comics—to name just a few possibilities.

The full article can be read after the jump. (more…)

Read Comments (23)

For some inexplicable reason, Adult Swim/Burger King did NOT host the critical Neon Knome election yesterday, as they had announced (and as we mentioned earlier here), but instead waited until late this afternoon to suddenly, and without warning, slip the contest under all interested radars.

Do not let this injustice stand. I don’t know how long this contest will last, so go to the site now to cast your vote for integrity, solid values, and Neon Knome.

[image found via]

Read Comments (5)

You’ve probably seen the links around the comics webonet, asking people to go to Adult Swim’s website and vote for Michael Kupperman’s Snake N’ Bacon to air on the channel.

You should do that. But don’t forget to return on Monday to vote again, this time for Alfe.

There may be a tough decision in the future if these two champions go up against each other, but I’ll leave that Sophie’s choice up to you. For now.

Read Comments (8)

I like to think that former President Bush’s speech writers read old issues of Fantastic Four. Maybe one of them read #57 during the ramp up to the invasion of Iraq. I mean, doesn’t Dr. Doom’s dialogue in the first panel read like classic Dubya speak?

“I have been waging a ceaseless battle for PEACE — and for JUSTICE! But, in the course of that battle, I need WEAPONS — weapons with which to defend myself from the dastardly enemies of FREEDOM!”

“THERE, for example, is my mobile, all-powerful PACIFIER! It’s purpose is to come to the aid of those who are threatened by TYRANNY — or by INJUSTICE!”

Read Comments (11)

Most of the collectors whose libraries we bought were dead years before the libraries came to us, so the only way we could judge the level of eccentricity in the collectors was the books themselves, or from other evidence. …

An Orientalist named Paul Linebarger, whose father, we were told, had been Sun Yat-sen’s lawyer, had absolutely wonderful books, but he had other things, too. He was an early expert on psychological warfare, which I believe he later taught. In one of his closets, for example, we found a huge pile of anticommunist comic books in Mongolian. Paul Linebarger also wrote science fiction, under the name Cordwainer Smith. And he had an interest in ladies’ lingerie. One of the more unusual things we bought from his estate was a bra mannequin, complete with bra. Several drawers full of bras we let lie.

I realize that most of you have probably never heard of Smith, but that’s okay. We won’t shy away from celebrating the unjustly obscure here. Scanners need no longer live in vain.

[via]

Read Comments (2)

Read Comments (11)

I went to the Omega the Unknown event at Rocketship last week to see co-creators Jonathan Lethem, Farel Dalrymple, Paul Hornschemeier, Karl Rusnak, and Gary Panter talk about the series. I was feeling a little under the weather, and the store was packed, so I didn’t stay long, but I did get a chance to briefly ask Lethem about the whole Rusnak/Kansur thing I pointed out a million internet years ago, and then expanded on a few thousand years later. Suffice it to say I didn’t get a very mind-blowing answer — if I recall correctly, Lethem called it “pretty obvious, huh?” and then went on to say that “Kansur” was Rusnak’s old graffiti tag, and that, sort of like how Charlie Brown always wanted to be called “Flash”, Rusnak used to wish his first name was “Rex”. Anyway, as this doesn’t exactly provide evidence for my “grand theories” (though it doesn’t necessarily contradict them!), I probably shouldn’t mention it, but due to my irreproachable personal honor code, I felt compelled to publicize it here. (That link is like my favorite political commercial of all time, by the way.)

Post Comment

I never read Batman, never read Superman, never read Flash. I didn’t read comic books. There was one time my mother was going to have to be gone, so she made me heat up a Swanson’s fried chicken TV dinner. I wanted to read something while I was eating, it was some cartoon, I can’t even tell you what the comic book was. Oh, I also watched Clutch Cargo, but I have no idea who this Curious George guy was. Now I do. I’ve seen the pictures of Curious George, everybody is telling me about Curious George. So I wish to apologize to both Senator Obama and Senator McCain. It was not my intent to bring dishonor and guttural utterances into this campaign. … In fact, I can tell you, I have never seen a cartoon starring a monkey, unless there was one on the Flintstones, but I think those were dinosaurs and alligators.

Via Radosh.net.

[Limbaugh caricature by Steve Brodner.]

Read Comments (5)

After a little wrangling, I have posted the somewhat infamous audio recording of my “interview” with CF at SPX 2007. Check it out here. But please don’t yell too loudly, he’s trying to finish Powr Mastrs 2. Shhhh. Also, remember to send positive thoughts to Obama today. He’s our only hope.