A THOUSAND FLOWERS SPECIAL 2004 ELECTION EDITION

[MattBrady]

Comics, Pop Culture, and the World Outside
Special 2004 Election Edition

by Stuart Moore

Speak Truth to Power
or
When Dick Cheney Weeps

I think even our overseas readers have gotten some inkling, some vague sense that there’s a hard-fought, crucially important election coming up in the U.S. And while I’ve retired this column (look for a book collection next summer), I couldn’t resist poking my head out for a look at some of the year’s most politically charged comics.

Let’s get one thing out of the way right up front, to avoid getting into the usual political arguments in the “comments” below: Most of these books slant toward the left side of the political spectrum. That tends to be true of creative people. Why?

It’s very simple: Creative people are smarter than others. They think more. Their brains are much, much larger, blessed with greater perception, more able to see clearly the genuine, transcendent, objective truth of life. There’s no point arguing about it; you’ll just find yourself outgunned by their superior, almost godlike synaptic abilities. Okay?

Good. Let’s get to the fun!

IN THE SHADOW OF NO TOWERS, by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon, 2004, $19.95 US)

God, this is a beautiful book. It makes you want to heft it, feel its weight, open it up and hold it at different angles. For those who haven’t seen it: In the Shadow of No Towers is a large-sized volume consisting of very few pages, all designed to open seamlessly into double-page spreads, each simulating the format of an old-style bedsheet newspaper strip. The printing is gorgeous, the binding is damn clever, and it looks great on a coffee table. As an art object, it’s impeccable.

As a work of art, it’s less successful. Spiegelman’s Maus was an authentic breakthrough. There’s a bad tendency, in the comics world, to view a comic-book work as triumphant if it merely holds its head up in the company of its literary peers, doesn’t embarrass itself. Maus did much more than that: It actually added to the discourse about Holocaust survivors through Spiegelman’s complex portrayal of his difficult, often hideously unlikable father. You came away from Maus with perspectives you hadn’t had before.

The same isn’t true of In the Shadow of No Towers -- at least, not to this New Yorker. Spiegelman’s a masterful cartoonist; as with Will Eisner or Frank Miller, the silliest throwaway Spiegelman strip is a more enjoyable, fluid reading experience than most people’s labored masterpieces. And he plays with the old-style, large format here to good effect. The Little Nemo-esque endings to some of the pages are particularly witty: “Then John Ashcroft pulled off his burka and shoved me out the window” “Hush, you fell out of bed, sweetie.”

But the bulk of the strips deal with Spiegelman’s own anxieties post-9/11 -- and, unlike in Maus, he just doesn’t have much original to say. I’m reminded of the initial spate of essays that followed the tragedy, 99% of which -- many by excellent writers -- were godawful. “As I sat on my Boerum Hill roof and watched the plume of smoke rise into the sky…” You couldn’t fault the writers; they were in shock, like everyone else, slapped in the face by something larger than they’d ever experienced before. But the results weren’t very memorable.

And Spiegelman admits he hasn’t gotten over his shock. “How can they be so complacent?” he asks, rhetorically, in one of the more recent strips. “How can they sleep??!…Don’t they know the world is ending???” And while Spiegelman successfully conjures a number of inventive visual metaphors for world tensions and his own state of mind, it’s possible that shock just isn’t the best frame of mind for producing great work.

Spiegelman does do a nice job of indicting the Bush administration for its policies post-9/11. Because of the book’s brevity, reading it is like a fast-forward through the past three years of demagoguery, political opportunism, and wasted opportunities on the world stage.

In the Shadow of no Towers ends with “The Comic Supplement,” a selection of turn-of-the-(20th)-century newspaper strips that inspired the main work. Oddly, Spiegelman’s introduction to this appendix is the most insightful part of the book. He writes passionately about his own obsession with these strips, following the fall of the towers. “That they were made with so much skill and verve but never intended to last past the day they appeared in the newspaper gave them poignancy; they were just right for an end-of-the-world moment.” It’s a worthy literary observation, far richer in implication than a drawing of Americans as ostriches with their heads stuck in the ground.

Buy this book; it’s worth the experience. Just don’t expect greatness.

QUOTABLE:

“The State Homeland Security Grant Program was designed by Bush and Congress using a formula that awards money to every state without regard to the actual level of terrorist threat. Billions of dollars in funds for first responders have been doled out this way. New York has been an Al Qaeda target numerous times in the past eleven years, and yet the state ranks 49th in per capita funding in this grant program.”

-- “Bush to New York: Here's Your $20 Billion—Now Drop Dead,” by Ryan Lizza
New York Magazine, June 14, 2004
LINK: http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/...features/9268/

TEX!: GEORGE BUSH AND THE FINE ART OF CHARACTER ASSASSINATION, by Joshua Dysart, Brad Rader, and others (Atomic Basement Entertainment, 2004, $3.99)

In the Shadow of No Towers is a lovingly-garnished meal served on fine silver, TEX! is fast food in a plain brown bag. It’s a 24-page comic book, black and white, produced quick and cheap to get the message out.

And for fast food, it’s remarkably nutritious. The conceit is simple: a history of George Bush’s career, told as if he were a comic-book superhero, complete with sidekicks (Karl Rove) and enemies (terrorists, of course, and a good segment of America, too). Along the way, TEX! mixes fiction with actual incidents -- some of which, like Bush’s mocking impression of a woman about to be executed in Texas, are all the more horrifying because they’re not exaggerated at all. A comprehensive appendix provides sources and elaboration on the comic itself.

As narrative, this is pretty thin stuff -- but that’s hardly the point. Writer Josh Dysart hails from Texas, and he writes with white-hot anger and an arsenal of facts at his fingertips. The comic ultimately explodes into his own inability to continue his superhero conceit, in the face of the terrible reality he’s writing about.

TEX! is rounded out by a selection of single-page comics by other cartoonists. Like Spiegelman’s book, it provides little new information to those of us who haunt the political blogs and have followed Bush’s career. But it’s a terrific summation of that career, and the metaphor of Bush-as-comic-hero actually says something about the President’s own self-image. Josh Dysart, ultimately, may not be able to maintain his storytelling device, but he leaves the reader with a queasy feeling that it’s uncomfortably close to the way Bush sees himself.

QUOTABLE:

“I will not authorize an invasion of another sovereign nation without absolute proof.”
--“President David Palmer,” 24 (TV series), numerous occasions in Spring 2003

BIRTH OF A NATION: A COMIC NOVEL, by Aaron McGruder, Reginald Hudlin, and Kyle Baker (Crown Publishers, 2004, $25.00)

As a young book editor, I attended a New Line Cinema in-house screening of Reginald Hudlin’s house Party. I went in expecting a typical ‘80s “Wild Comedy,” and came out nodding and smiling at Hudlin’s wit and the sophisticated approach he took to his young characters. That skill is on full display in Birth of a Nation, which reads more like Hudlin’s work than like the angrier, sharper scalpel of his worthy collaborator, Aaron McGruder.

Hudlin’s introduction sets the stage nicely, providing a short history of East St. Louis -- the notoriously depressed city that declares its independence, as the free nation of Blackland -- and discussing the book’s origins as a film treatment. “Rather than have it sit on shelf, waiting for Jay-Z to buy Paramount,” Hudlin says, “we decided to publish it as a graphic novel.”

McGruder and Hudlin juggle a huge cast very nicely, painting a range of characters in various moral hues. Nobody’s perfect here, nor completely evil. Even the Presidential administration -- who aren’t named, but are obvious in their caricatures -- are not played as evil, hand-rubbing supervillains. (Well, Cheney is a little, but that’s not much of a stretch.) Instead, they’re shown as out of their depth, especially the President. They talk themselves into bad decisions, often out of a lack of insight to find better solutions. If anything, it’s overly giving. But it works.

And the story bounces along at a good clip. Some of the gags fall flat, but others -- such as the “Blackland” national anthem, sung to the tune of “Good Times” -- hit just right and stick in your head. Kyle Baker’s caricature-heavy style suits this material just right; nobody draws desperately-smiling ordinary joes, hoping for the best but knowing different deep inside, better than Baker.

As other reviewers have noted, the book’s chosen format works against it in a few places. The art is presented free of word balloons, accompanied by dialogue captions. This worked very well in Baker’s own Why I Hate Saturn, but it’s a little strained here. The action in the climactic scene is a little hard to follow, and occasional descriptive lines like “The crowd mumbles its displeasure” throw the reader out of the story; they seem like stage directions carried over from a film script, not fully integrated into the comic.

But these are minor criticisms. Birth of a Nation is a witty, fun caper, and an important statement on behalf of an important group -- African Americans -- whose voice is in danger of being drowned out in the current political chaos. Repeat after me:

“Ain’t we lucky we got it --
BLACKLAAAA-AAAAAA-AAAAAAAAND!”

QUOTABLE:

“It is never easy to discuss what has gone wrong while our troops are in constant danger. But it’s essential if we want to correct our course and do what’s right for our troops instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over again. I know this dilemma first-hand. After serving in war, I returned home to offer my own personal voice of dissent. I did so because I believed strongly that we owed it those risking their lives to speak truth to power. We still do.”
--John Kerry, finally giving a good speech, 9/20/04

GET YOUR WAR ON II, by David Rees (Riverhead Books, 2004, $12.00)

David Rees is the voice of the left’s hysterical laughter. In the wake of 9/11, Rees’s simple clip-art comic strips became an e-mail sensation, circulated throughout the world. Get Your War On (homepage: http://www.mnftiu.cc/ ) consists of a very few, repeated images of office workers talking on the phone, hysterically trying to make sense of the world situation. And it’s all printed in red, just to make sure your eyes end up as seared as your brain.

There’s nothing like this strip. It’s simply hilarious. The previous volume (Soft Skull Press, 2002) opened with a series of variations on the phrase, “Oh yeah! Operation Enduring Freedom is in the motherfucking house!” This one picks up on that and takes it one further: “Oh yeah! Operation Whatever The Fuck Crazy-Ass Name They Come Up With For the Iraq War is in the house!” It builds from there, including such gems as:

"Man, did Bush look tired during that press conference!...Bush was so tired he kept repeating the phrase 'September 11th' no matter what the question was -- I wonder if he was aware of that?"

"When Dick Cheney weeps, is the oil coming out of his eyes leaded or unleaded?"

"All I have to say is, once this is over, the Iraqi people better be the freest fucking people on the face of the earth. They better be freer than me. They better be so fucking free they can fly."

(Oh yeah -- there’s a little profanity here and there.)

In addition to the usual ranting, this volume also features “classic” Get Your War On strips from the 1980s, when the author wasn’t so good at spelling and punctuation (“its’ so weird that U.S.A. is friends with Saddam Hussien!!!!”); a few vintage 1860s strips (“Oh man! I’ve been looking at those Matthew Brady daguerreotypes of battlefields! That shit is no joke!”); and my favorite feature, “Why Can’t I Get Away With Fucking Up Get Your War On Like Donald Rumsfeld Gets Away With Fucking Up Wars?”, which features childlike scrawls uttering dialogue like “HEY DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS?” “SOUNDS GOOD WHAT IS IT?” “I DON’T KNOW” Ha ha ha!

By now, you’re either laughing hysterically or staring at the screen, shaking your head. Either way, give this book a shot. The cumulative effect of Rees’s strips is simply stunning.

And don’t forget: November 2, 2004. Do the right thing!

**

Stuart Moore has been a writer, a comics editor for Vertigo and Marvel Knights, a kitchen worker, a book editor, and various other, less glamorous jobs. He has won the Will Eisner award for Best Editor 1996 and the Don Thompson Award for Favorite Editor 1999.

Coming September 29th (fingers crossed): PARA #4, my high-tech/supernatural thriller from Penny-Farthing Press. Steven Grant (http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=10) says: “This is reminiscent of the little pleasures of DC's old STRANGE ADVENTURES comic under Julie Schwartz's aegis, but played as a movie and given room to breathe…I'm hooked; it's intelligent, controlled work.” This has been delayed, but should finish out its six-issue run on a monthly basis from here on. Watch for a Newsarama catch-up feature on PARA, coming soon.

Also September 29th: LONE (trade paperback), by Stuart Moore, Jerome Opena, and Alberto Ponticelli. A feared gunman must come out of retirement to fight an army of zombies -- and discover what really caused the collapse of civilization. Featuring the artwork of Russ Manning Award-winner Jerome Opena. "Stuart Moore masterfully grabs the reader’s attention; he’s got us from the gripping first line….Four stars." --SFX Magazine. Official solicitation is here: http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=12-438

And on October 20th: MICHAEL CHABON PRESENTS THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF THE ESCAPIST #4. Featuring the 38-page, oddly melancholy, retro-future tale THE ESCAPIST 2966, by me and Steve "Astounding Space Thrills" Conley. The official solicitation is here: http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=13-063 . If you prefer the trade paperback editions, volume 2 collects issues #3 and 4 and goes on sale November 10th (http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=13-065).

Currently working on: An original film for the SciFi Channel; a new series for Avatar; a very, very strange novel for a gaming company; the AiT/PlanetLar graphic novel WILL STARR! SPACE PILOT!, with John McCrea; and more.

To sign up for my occasional preview mailing list, send an e-mail to stuartcomics@mindspring.com .

[algertman]

i LOVE "Get Your War On"

[JimHughs4]

Thank you, Stuart.

[gOgIver]

When any of this stuff receives a reception equal to that of the Musical "Cats" please let us know.

[Userama]

Get Your War On is my single favorite piece of post-9/11 art. Why? Because it's really fucked up, and all the 'characters' are belligerent and frightened at once. As they should be.

[Chris Hunter]

Originally posted by MattBrady


And don’t forget: November 2, 2004. Do the right thing!

Yes! Vote for Berry!

[clerk976]

Creative people are smarter than others. They think more. Their brains are much, much larger, blessed with greater perception, more able to see clearly the genuine, transcendent, objective truth of life. There’s no point arguing about it; you’ll just find yourself outgunned by their superior, almost godlike synaptic abilities. Okay?

See, therein lies the problem. The Liberals get all bent out of shape and call conservatives stupid, unthinking, imbeciles. On the other hand, conservatives sit there and assess the situation, responding with logic. That's difference folks.

Liberals feel.
Conservatives think.

So if these so-called creative people don't want to think, that's fine by me. Just don't tell me it's because they're so superior.

But Aaron McGruder is clever as hell. He gets points for taking shots at all sides. There's a man that thinks and sees the ridiculous nature of it all.

[hoarseandbuggy]

It�s very simple: Creative people are smarter than others. They think more. Their brains are much, much larger, blessed with greater perception, more able to see clearly the genuine, transcendent, objective truth of life. There�s no point arguing about it; you�ll just find yourself outgunned by their superior, almost godlike synaptic abilities. Okay?

And this is why Stuart Moore remains my hero.

Great article Stuart.

[Brian Langlois]

It’s very simple: Creative people are smarter than others. They think more. Their brains are much, much larger, blessed with greater perception, more able to see clearly the genuine, transcendent, objective truth of life. There’s no point arguing about it; you’ll just find yourself outgunned by their superior, almost godlike synaptic abilities. Okay?

The fact that you can write and believe such a patently false statement disproves its very assertion that the liberal are inherently smarter than conservatives. There are in fact extrememly intelligent people on both sides of the equation and this kind of thinking does a disservice to both parties. It is a biased and sad method of bashing the opposition so that you can feel secure in your own position no matter how flawed it is. You have lost all credibility with me by making such an unenlightened statement.

Personally, I think the truly intelligent ones are the people who can see through all the partisan nonsense from both sides and make informed choices regardless of party lines.

[Chris Hunter]

Originally posted by Brian Langlois
The fact that you can write and believe such a patently false statement disproves its very assertion that the liberal are inherently smarter than conservatives. There are in fact extrememly intelligent people on both sides of the equation and this kind of thinking does a disservice to both parties. It is a biased and sad method of bashing the opposition so that you can feel secure in your own position no matter how flawed it is. You have lost all credibility with me by making such an unenlightened statement.

Personally, I think the truly intelligent ones are the people who can see through all the partisan nonsense from both sides and make informed choices regardless of party lines.

VERY well said, Brian. Cheers.

[LIEFELDISGOD]

Originally posted by Brian Langlois
The fact that you can write and believe such a patently false statement disproves its very assertion that the liberal are inherently smarter than conservatives. There are in fact extrememly intelligent people on both sides of the equation and this kind of thinking does a disservice to both parties. It is a biased and sad method of bashing the opposition so that you can feel secure in your own position no matter how flawed it is. You have lost all credibility with me by making such an unenlightened statement.

Personally, I think the truly intelligent ones are the people who can see through all the partisan nonsense from both sides and make informed choices regardless of party lines.

Though I think the comments were meant tongue in cheek (though I think the author believes them to a small extent) I still agree with you on every point...

[cncoyle]

Originally posted by Chris Hunter
Yes! Vote for Berry!

No, thank you!
I'll be voting for Kush/Chedwards!

[MattBrady]

Originally posted by LIEFELDISGOD
I think the comments were meant tongue in cheek

I thought that was pretty clear...

Guess it wasn't for everyone, and those reactionary, "You've insulted me good sir!" tripwires are still painfully close to the surface.

Senses of humor, RIP.

MattB

[Dave Accampo]

Originally posted by clerk976
Liberals feel.
Conservatives think.

I knew Stuart was going for the easy joke (given the history of his column), but I also knew it would still have ramifications.

The above statement is so ludicrous, I hope that it's also an attempt at a joke.

I mean, really. I know lots of people on both sides who think AND feel. And honestly, I've run into a lot of conservatives who do NOT speculate and engage in logic and reasoning, but rather spout half-truths based on deeply engrained opinions.

[gredenko]

Originally posted by Brian Langlois
The fact that you can write and believe such a patently false statement disproves its very assertion blah blah blah...

The fact that you tried to write a serious response to the biggest joke in the article is itself funny.

Personally, I think the truly intelligent ones are the people who can see through all the partisan nonsense from both sides and make informed choices regardless of party lines.

I have no doubt that the writer of the article agrees with you, as do I, at least on this point.

[kennyab]

Originally posted by clerk976
Liberals feel.
Conservatives think.

So if these so-called creative people don't want to think, that's fine by me. Just don't tell me it's because they're so superior.

I'm not interested in saying one side is superior for whatever reason, but I take issue with your logic. Emotion is an important component of rational thinking. People we consider sociopathic are often that way because the system governing their emotions are out-of-whack. Read about Phineas Gage. Feeling are thinking are not two separate things.

[Zonker]

Senses of humor, RIP.

MattB

Indeed. And unless the election is a blow-out (one way or another), that is likely to continue. With a comfortable majority, one side can afford to laugh, and the other side can *only* laugh! As it is, each side sees itself in a life&death struggle over a few inches, and also sees the other side as completely illegitmate.

What we need is a landslide, one way or another!

[malshnut]

Originally posted by clerk976
See, therein lies the problem. The Liberals get all bent out of shape and call conservatives stupid, unthinking, imbeciles. On the other hand, conservatives sit there and assess the situation, responding with logic. That's difference folks.

Liberals feel.
Conservatives think.

And Moderates do both, weighing the emotional impact with the practical, I like to think that most of us are of the Moderate side of things, as anyone who goes to far in either direction, liberal or conservative risks becoming an extremist.

[MattBrady]

Originally posted by malshnut
And Moderates do both, weighing the emotional impact with the practical, I like to think that most of us are of the Moderate side of things, as anyone who goes to far in either direction, liberal or conservative risks becoming an extremist.

see: Miller, Zell

quotabe: (while foaming at the mouth) "grrrr! snarl!!! grrrr! arrrrrh!"

but I agree with your point - most people are moderates, and more towards the middle than the media would have you believe, or the screamers from either side would ahve you believe as well (after all, "if you don't follow/vote for _____ to the letter, you're going to die and go to hell" - subtext of about every political ad on the air these days).

But that aside, I relaly enjoyed Birth of a Nation.

MattB

[jmarshall]

Originally posted by clerk976
Liberals feel.
Conservatives think.

Nah, both camps do both. Liberals feel for people who are disadvantaged and less fortunate than themselves and try to think of ways to help them. Conservatives feel for themselves and try to think of ways to limit their assets being spent on others. That's what it boils down to.

[Brian Langlois]

It didn't really seem like a joke to me. If it was one, then I apologize for attacking the author's credibility. However, in the world today there are far too many people who do actually believe such elitist nonsense. It seems like the liberals want to make some exclusive claim on intelligence when such a claim is simply false. Conservatives are often no better, though they have been on the defensive side as of late (usually the party in control is less vocal than the one that is not and it flip flops every few years). It just didn't seem like a joke to me, especially in the context of the article. The author surely made no effort to hide his own views and thus I assumed that all his ideas were genuine.

The thing is that in the current political climate a joke of this manner should be expected to receive some rather serious responses. If the author wasn't expecting a serious political discourse then what was the point of the article? It seems his joke was intended to "push people's buttons" and it isn't surprising that people responded the way they did. Remember the most important rule of political humor is to actually be funny. If a joke has to be explained later then it wasn't very good to begin with.

[MattBrady]

Originally posted by Brian Langlois
Remember the most important rule of political humor is to actually be funny. If a joke has to be explained later then it wasn't very good to begin with.

Where's that rule written down? Does it cover satire and parody as well?

And the joke didn't have to be explained to everyone....

I stick by my earlier premise that senses of humor are buried deep, deep down these days, and everyone is itching for a fight as soon as they see some percieved insult, it seems like.

MattB

[TVerBeek]

Originally posted by clerk976
{whine, gripe, sniffle, pout}
Liberals feel.
Conservatives think.

... and completely miss the concept of humor in the process. :P

[hork]

Originally posted by clerk976
See, therein lies the problem. The Liberals get all bent out of shape and call conservatives stupid, unthinking, imbeciles. On the other hand, conservatives sit there and assess the situation, responding with logic. That's difference folks.

Liberals feel.
Conservatives think.

So if these so-called creative people don't want to think, that's fine by me. Just don't tell me it's because they're so superior.

Actually, whenever I get into an argument with a conservative, I'm always the one who ends up getting called an "idiot bleeding heart." "Thinking" and "feeling" apply to both sides of the political spectrum pretty much equally.

[Brian Langlois]

Originally posted by MattBrady
Where's that rule written down? Does it cover satire and parody as well?

And the joke didn't have to be explained to everyone....

I stick by my earlier premise that senses of humor are buried deep, deep down these days, and everyone is itching for a fight as soon as they see some percieved insult, it seems like.

MattB

If political HUMOR isn't FUNNY, then it is not doing its job. Satire and Parody can take many forms, but the best ones usually are humorous. Either the statement was a joke and was intended to be funny or it wasn't. As I already said, it didn't seem like a joke to me.

I agree that when it comes to politics that people are very serious these days. That's why I don't understand the surprise by some people at the responses the joke got. What did the author expect? Maybe a bunch of "lol, lol, You got that right" type remarks? In a serious article about serious political issues it doesn't surprise me at all that some people would want to discuss things seriously.

As for insulting, I certainly didn't feel like the remark insulted me so much as it insulted alll the readers because of the sheer ignorance of the statement. As I said, there are far too many people who do believe such things and beliefs like that are irresponsible and dangerous. Now, again, if it was a joke, then the initial weight that I gave to the statment was not necessary and this whole thing can be dismissed as attempted humor. I say attempted because it still wasn't very funny.