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Old 05-08-2006, 11:42 AM   #1
MattBrady
 
TALKING ABOUT SHOOTING WAR WITH LAPPE AND GOLDMAN

by Chris Arrant

Some people look towards the future with the hope that it'll be better than the days we're living with now. With wars in the Middle East, Africa and other regions, the threat of a global pandemic with the Bird Flu, and the increasing tension of violence by terrorists, it's not hard to see why people would look for better times. But in the upcoming webcomic Shooting War, the tensions of today and grown, and sadly become a fact of reality in the in the near future of 2011.

Shooting War follows a young reporter/blogger named Jimmy Burns, who works for the news network Global TV (GTV). Living in relative obscurity in the media eye, he's suddenly thrust into the limelight when he videoblogs the aftermath of a terrorist attack that hit his own home. By pulling himself together while his house fell down around him, Burns beams it live to a media-frenzied world and becomes an overnight media sensation. The tragedy turns into a blessing and then turns into a tragedy again as his employers at GTV exploit his new-found stardom to their own ends. In a fit of anger, Burns takes off for the battlefields of Iraq to get the real story of a war that's been raging for more than eight years.

Created and written by journalist Anthony Lappe, the subject matter is one close to his heart and his own experiences. His experiences in the field writing for The New York Times, and in filming his own recent documentary of Iraq, Battleground: 21 Days on the Empire's Edge, have left Lappe with the background, memories and inspiration to extrapolate today's event into a possible and frightening future. Partnering with cartoonist Dan Goldman of ACT-i-VATE fame, their story begins this May 15th.

But we couldn't wait that long.

Newsarama got in touch with both the writer and artist to talk about their upcoming serialized webcomic to find out about the story, the collaboration, and the technology that goes into this story.

Newsarama: What led you to coming up with the ideas of Shooting War, Anthony?

Anthony Lappe: Shooting War was inspired by my own reporting in Iraq, not necessarily exactly what I saw, but what I felt and dreamt afterwards. If one wants to see exactly what I saw they could watch BattleGround; the [documentary] I produced that aired on Showtime. I traveled all over Iraq, reporting from all sides of the conflict which I chronicled on my blog. Since I got back, I’ve been featuring a lot of unembedded reporting from Iraq on the Guerrilla News Network, the web site I edit. Guys like David Enders and Borzou Daragahi have been huge inspirations in the badass intrepid journalism they do. As have Iraq vets like my frequent radio talk show partner Paul Rieckhoff, a lieutenant in the National Guard, founder of the of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) and the author of the newly released book, Chasing Ghosts.

The concept itself for Shooting War was born out of an immediate desire to create the first Iraq war animated feature film, one that felt like a video game but that had all the raw emotional and physical reality of war – you’d feel the pain when someone gets shot, and not just the exhilaration of garnering hit points. The wounded, friend and foe, groans, screams and cries for momma when hit. Like so many great projects, the genesis for the Shooting War graphic novel came about at a bar; I was telling my friend Jeff Newelt, aka JahFurry - reggae singer, comics-head, and PR pro, about the idea over drinks one night and he said, “Screw film, make a graphic novel...NOW.” Comics weren’t so much on my radar yet so he gave me a crash course, throwing Transmetropolitan, Watchmen, Ultimates, Invisibles, and other greats my way. I’m purposely waiting until after finishing the first book of Shooting War to check out Garth Ennis’s War Stories

NRAMA: Can you tell us more about the lead character Jimmy Burns?

Dan Goldman: Jimmy is a young turk citizen journalist who is gets hooked on the danger buzz.

AL: Jimmy is the ultimate outsider journalist, with a nose for a story, and ear for reporting, a fierce anti-corporate bias and a knack for talking smack. He’s a hipster, but has little time for fashionistas or the ill-informed.

DG: He's a politics-fixated anger-blast of a young video-blogger trying to do the buck the system on his own terms... until the larger machinations of the world that he rails against come crashing into what's left of his home.

AL: Through a journalistic fluke that every reporter dreams of he becomes an overnight star. All of a sudden, he finds himself embraced by the mainstream media, and the next thing he knows he’s on a Black Hawk helicopter flying over war-torn Iraq. It’s his worst nightmare and his biggest dream: to be a war reporter…

DG: With nothing left to hold him here and an opportunity to step up his game, he signs with Global TV and heads to Baghdad to find out see things first-hand.

NRAMA: Like Dan mentioned, Jimmy's Williamsburg home is hit by a terrorist attack on NYC. Is this his first direct confrontation with terrorism?

AL: He was in NYC on 9/11. But he was only 11 and it didn’t really penetrate his shell. Like a lot of kids, the attacks were almost like a TV show. The reality only sunk in later when they found out their friends’ parents died. This terrorist attack hits home, literally, blowing his apartment to bits right in front of his eyes.

NRAMA: How would you contrast today's world and the year 2011 Jimmy lives in?

AL: Imagine today’s rash of BAD news… I mean there’s a sh%^load of REALLY BAD NEWS right now… and then multiply that by ten, maybe eleven. It’s an admittedly dark vision of the worst-case scenario of where the Bush agenda is leading us. There’s a global oil crisis, the economy is busted, and the Middle East is …again, just horrendous times eleven. Iraq has devolved into a full-on brutal civil war, but our allies are not who you think they’d be. Americans overwhelmingly want out, but President McCain is trapped, like his bosses back in Vietnam, in a war they can’t figure out how to get out of.

NRAMA: Woah woah woah… President McCain? When 2008 comes around, I'm be interested to see if you're calling this right.

Anyway, Jimmy works for a network called Global TV. With the myriad of flavors in network available to us here in 2006, can you explain to us what Global TV is?

DG: Global TV reflects our 2011 America, which it posits that after 10 years of war in Iraq/etc and after years of media spin and deception interwoven with our Media of Fear, America's created a news network to deal with that fear... mostly free of partisan agenda. The biblical idea of "Know Thy Enemy" crossed with the unblinking eye of the media, Global is 24-hour uncensored coverage on the war on terror.

AL: In 2011, both political parties are morally bankrupt, and everyone knows it… the faithful are faithless. With Bush’s exit in ‘08, Fox News loses its luster as the voice of the right. Global TV (tagline: "Your home for 24-hour terror coverage”) steps into the void with a hyper-nationalist, almost nativist, no-holds-barred reporting style. They promise to show the reality of the global war on terror to the American public. No more censoring of brutal images, no more sugarcoating reality. All terror, all the time. It’s rated R for reality. Faces of Death here we come. Unspun, uncensored and unsane.

NRAMA: As a reporter, you have your own experiences from covering the Iraq War. Who were you reporting for during your times there, and how would you describe the current situation?

AL: I was producing a film and writing a book, True Lies, with my partner at GNN, Stephen Marshall. I also wrote a blog about what was happening each day for GNN. The current situation is horrible, but entirely predictable. I saw it everyday there in the fall of 2003. The Americans had a window of opportunity to make the invasion work. But they blew it at every point. While few Iraqis welcomed the Americans with garlands, most were happy to have Saddam gone. They hoped the Americans would restore order and justice to their screwed up country. What they got was almost total chaos and horrendous violence. They’ve already had the equivalent of ten to twenty 9/11’s (in terms of dead). The current situation is a disaster and will be for years.

NRAMA: This project is being presented online in Flash animation over the course of eight weeks. Why did you choose this format for the story?

AL: Just to clarify, there’s a Flash animation intro, created by Indelible and the panels are programmed into Flash, but it’s not animated.

DG: To get technical: it's we're using Javascript to PRESENT the art, but it's very much a COMIC, not an animation. We do have an animated intro that was designed in Flash by Indelible that proceeds each weekly episode and gives an intro-slash-origin-story for Jimmy so that we hit the ground running every week. Indelible has taken pieces of my art from the series, which is also completely digital in creation, and animated bits of it around a concept/storyboard Anthony and I worked up. The final "movie" is exported in Final Cut, where Anthony has scored it and created the music himself. Like many other of the "young cats" in comics, I am creating my work digitally from top to bottom, paper-free. I'm combining techniques from digital painting, fumetti and illustration into this chemical cosh that I've figured out and still exploring all the time; the art for Shooting War is something I am especially proud of as it marries a handful of ideas I've been expanding upon over the years into something sexy and new.

Intro aside, the online presentation of my comic 'pages" is inside a "viewing gallery" on our Shooting War mini-site with a simple and elegant interface, but the pages themselves remain comic pages. You read a page and click forward or back; we're not trying to marvel you with anything but the ideas embedded in Anthony's story and my sexy pictures that get them to walk around. Our intention from the get-go was to begin online with this complete story and end in print with a much longer graphic novel, so I wanted to keep any elements essential to the storytelling in a medium where nothing would be lost once we go to print (animations, sound effects; any information conveyed is conveyed on the page).

NRAMA: Gotcha. But with it primarily being static panels, why Flash?

AL: We wanted to use a fast-loading and stable platform that people could easily navigate through, and Indelible’s tasty Flash teaser is our icing.

DG: There is nothing sequential art can't do in the right pairs of hands. Let me repeat that: There is nothing sequential art can't do in the right pairs of hands. The format and presentation may change, but the medium is static by definition. If it moves, if it sings... it's animation. If the sound and movement happens in YOUR MIND, then you're reading a comic. And that is the magic that makes me do what I do.

NRAMA: According to the press release, you are using actual sounds recorded in Iraq. Are those ones you've recorded?

AL: Yes, and from other sources too.

NRAMA: How did you two come together to work on this project?

AL: I met Dan through an ad I posted on JDate…, I mean Craigslist. I posted a call for artists on Craig’s List and got responses from an amazing array of artists. If any are reading this, thanks so much for sending me samples of your work. It was very inspiring.

DG: Anthony had a posting up on NYC's Craigslist that was already a few weeks old; we'd just launched ACT-I-VATE (http://act-i-vate.livejournal.com ) and I was all about getting my groove on with "Kelly" and prepping for some other upcoming comics collaborations with Chris Radtke and Damon Hurd, but something about the ad just... sparkled. I dropped him a quick line and said that even if they'd already found an artist, I was curious to know more about what they were doing.

AL: When Dan replied, I recognized his name from his ACT-I-VATE affiliation. The day before Dan sent me his stuff, Jeff had foisted the ACT-I-VATE link upon me, so I was up on Dan’s most recent work, his surreal urban, existentially nauseous roommate-from-hades tale, Kelly.

DG: Anthony called me back in about 20 minutes and said he was familiar with what we were doing over at ACT-I-VATE. Anthony sent me links to his GNN site and a link to the trailer for the Battleground documentary that aired on Showtime. They were doing a screening of his documentary in Williamsburg that weekend for its DVD release and he invited me to come check it out. From the trailer of the film alone, I think I was sold, even though I didn't know much about Shooting War's story… but after meeting with him and rapping about it, we both agreed that "the click" was there.

AL: We immediately clicked, and when I read Everyman – Be The People graphic novel, that Dan wrote with his brother Steven, it was hyper-apparent that Dan was the only one to illustrate this story. … He’s not just an artist, he’s a fantastic writer with an impeccable story sense and a unique juxtaposition of twisted irony meets in your face earnestness.

NRAMA: Just for a moment, let's talk about Dan's previous political-inspired comic work of the aforementioned Everyman: Be The People. Is this type of material something you're drawn to, and if so, why?

DG: In topical-work sense it is, but I've also been working on some other stuff since as well... Kelly over at ACT-I-VATE, for instance, which is a whole graphic novel in weekly chunks. I'm also developing a Brendan McCarthy-inspired psychedelighettovigilante book called The 718 with Chris Radtke at the moment. But like the Pharcyde says, "I gotta kick something that means something." Bad trips and enemas aside, "Kelly" is about why people hurt those close to them. Everyman was about blowing on a tiny ember of hope for the future in a dark and corrupted present. The 718 is about being addicted to your own legend.

Since writing Everyman for the 2004 "election" I've done a lot of thinking and reading and marinating on the American system and I needed to take a big step back from all of that and see how it fits into the larger system of power on this planet. Shooting War came along at the right time, ideologically, for me... when the senseless disaster and violence and manipulation of the herd drowns out all the good stuff and you're forced to drop the "hope for the future" line and own up to the consequences of a system you're paying your taxes to feed.

Shooting War isn't really about "the war in Iraq" as much as it's about the bloody gears of geo-politicking that nations in the plural do to turn the wheels of the world. The fact that the story is grounded but actually about something abstract that makes me angry, written by someone who's seen these things first-hand... and that I could even learn a thing or two in the process of creating this piece of art is pretty fantastic.

NRAMA: Dan, let's talk more about what synched it for you regarding Anthony's story once you read it...

DG: Other than the energy and sparkle of everyone else involved (which is fearsome to behold), the story is important... there's an anger and passion in this project that I share. It burns in my stomach when I suffer through newsfeeds and documentaries and look at what we are doing overseas to other peoples (which has been going on forever). There's nothing worse than reading something that's interesting and pretty but makes you feel nothing; let's be frank, there's enough of that in comics. I am a writer myself, and Shooting War is a very intense story; sitting with Anthony at our first meeting and listening to him tell me about it instantly made me see pictures in my mind... pictures I wanted to draw. And that's all great enough, but there is the additional sexy having our work serialized as a prominent feature on something like Smith magazine, which is a really forward-thinking publishing concept. Smith is off mainstream comics-radar but definitely embedded into the blogosphere and the circles of the literati; it's going to bring our work to a whole other audience that wouldn't otherwise witness the blazing magic that is Shooting War.

NRAMA: Shooting War is being published online through Smith Magazine. Why did you choose this outlet for your story?

AL: Shooting War is a perfect fit for Smith Magazine. The magazine is all celebrating and showcasing storytelling in all its many shapes and forms with a big emphasis on bottom-up, highly democratic forms of personal, or participatory media like blogging. And Shooting War is the sort of the penultimate blogger fantasy. Larry Smith is an amazing, pedigreed editor with a real vision. I had met Larry years before at Burning Man, of all places. Once again, it was Jeff, who hooked us up. Larry was Jeff’s editor on the University of Pennsylvania newspaper back in the early 90’s and they kept in touch. Again, over drinks Jeff said, “You’ve got to talk to Larry Smith. Smith is the perfect place for Shooting War.” Jeff and I (who’s a partner and creative consultant on the project) had originally thought about just putting together a book proposal and going straight to publishers. But launching on Smith has turned out to be much more exciting and utterly apropos. I love the idea of a weekly serial, the ability to create a community around the work, built from the ground up. This isn’t a big media conglomerate trying to make a buck off the war, but a few dedicated creators putting everything they have into a project that believe in and putting it out there for free. The Web’s a perfect medium for the graphic novel, and Smith is the perfect home for Shooting War.

Would we like to talk about Shooting War War some night on the Daily Show or some morning with Matt Lauer? Absolutely. But we suspect the way we’ll get the word out is the comic sites and the [military blogs] and friends sending links to friends who dig and devour the story of Jimmy Burns and do what we all do when we hear a great story: we pass it on.

Shooting War is written by Anthony Lappe with artwork by Dan Goldman and a Flash intro by Indelible. This free serialized online comic launches on May 15th at Smith Magazine, and will run new installments weekly for 8 weeks. A teaser video for the title will be online next week prior to the official launch of the comic. In addition, the Shooting War crew invites you to friend them on MySpace under SmithMag, Dan Goldman, GNN and Jeff Newelt.
 
Old 05-08-2006, 01:22 PM   #2
Delta Ass
 
Hmmm... I can't help thinking that in the year 2011, the TPB of this is either gonna look really smart on my bookshelf, or really silly...
 
Old 05-08-2006, 02:39 PM   #3
Mr.Dee
 
Why buy this when I can buy DMZ?
 
Old 05-08-2006, 03:03 PM   #4
talltim
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Dee
Why buy this when I can buy DMZ?
You don't have to buy this. It's free.

nice.
 
Old 05-08-2006, 03:45 PM   #5
buji
 
very interesting-sounding project. i'll be looking forward to checking it out more once it starts to be released. it will be interesting to see what kind of reception this format gets as well.
 
Old 05-08-2006, 04:04 PM   #6
Mr.Dee
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by talltim
You don't have to buy this. It's free.

nice.


Well free is always good.
 
Old 05-08-2006, 04:25 PM   #7
c_andrew_s
 
This looks great. The art looks fantastic
 
Old 05-08-2006, 05:47 PM   #8
Dork
 
I won't be reading an anti-Bush piece.
 
Old 05-08-2006, 07:24 PM   #9
spiderrob8
 
Pass. Second verse same as the first.
What would be truly revolutionary would be an entertainment piece from the opposite point of view.
They can do what they want, but I don't want to see it. Heard it all before ad nauseum.
 
Old 05-08-2006, 08:09 PM   #10
JoeZhang
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by spiderrob8
Pass. Second verse same as the first.
What would be truly revolutionary would be an entertainment piece from the opposite point of view.
They can do what they want, but I don't want to see it. Heard it all before ad nauseum.


You've already got it - liberty or whatever the ____ it's called.


Man that reminds me - I paid for a commision from a rather well-known artist of Captain America kicking George Bush in the head - wonder if it's nearly finished yet.
 
Old 05-08-2006, 09:36 PM   #11
MattBrady
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dork
I won't be reading an anti-Bush piece.
twice through, and I can't see where it's anti-Bush...

I mean, at this point, even some of the president's staunchest supporters are saying we won't be out of Iraq anytime soon, and serious, serious mistakes in strategy were made early on. How is portraying the current status quo extending another 5 years anti-Bush? If anything, you could probably argue that it's anti-Democrat and pro-Bush, as (in this story) no one has been able to make any kind of real change to the gameboard as the pieces have been placed, and the world he's worked hard to create now is still around then. Er, yay - right?

MattB
 
Old 05-08-2006, 09:43 PM   #12
gwangung
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by MattBrady
twice through, and I can't see where it's anti-Bush...

I mean, at this point, even some of the president's staunchest supporters are saying we won't be out of Iraq anytime soon, and serious, serious mistakes in strategy were made early on. How is portraying the current status quo extending another 5 years anti-Bush? If anything, you could probably argue that it's anti-Democrat and pro-Bush, as (in this story) no one has been able to make any kind of real change to the gameboard as the pieces have been placed, and the world he's worked hard to create now is still around then. Er, yay - right?

MattB

Doesn't matter.

Too many folks are prejudging stuff and rejecting it out of hand before looking at it. See creationists vis a vis evolution, where it's most obvious. Less obvious cases are environmentalists and nuclear power....way too much knee jerk and not nearly enough thinking.
 
Old 05-09-2006, 01:31 AM   #13
Kevin Street
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dork
I won't be reading an anti-Bush piece.

Then you should turn off your computer and stay off the Internet. And don't read any newspapers or watch TV. Or heck, why go outside? You might run into a war veteran or look at a gas pump.

Right now, we're all living in the world that Bush made. Pretending that everything's fine and prejudging any kind of story that has the slightest chance of bursting your bubble won't make reality go away.
 
Old 05-09-2006, 03:19 AM   #14
theodoros2
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dork
I won't be reading an anti-Bush piece.


For the love of God, Allah, Zeus, Buddah, e.c...

...these people are real? Is it 1984?
 
Old 05-09-2006, 03:24 AM   #15
theodoros2
 
By the way, great worth mentioning idea!
 
Old 05-09-2006, 10:17 AM   #16
dangoldman
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwangung
Too many folks are prejudging stuff and rejecting it out of hand before looking at it. See creationists vis a vis evolution, where it's most obvious. Less obvious cases are environmentalists and nuclear power....way too much knee jerk and not nearly enough thinking.

Before you damn the project as a "knee-jerk" reaction, why not do your homework and rent Anthony's documentary BATTLEGROUND from your local videoshop/Netflix? This is not a work of fantasy, gwangung; Anthony took two videocameras and WENT TO IRAQ HIMSELF to see things firsthand. The New York Times called his film "a movingly human and many-sided portrait of the war" and it was at a screening of this documentary that I realize I wanted to work with someone like Anthony on something like SHOOTING WAR.

If it was some whiny liberal finger-pointing OR a hardline pro-Bush spin, I wouldn't be their artist. The fact that it's JOURNALISM IN IRAQ'S NEAR FUTURE, telling and seeing where things are going from someone who's been there, is what sets this apart from the pack.

I do hope you come check it out on Monday. Peace.
 
Old 05-09-2006, 12:07 PM   #17
phicks
 
Are the creators aware that there is already a Toronto based TV station called Global TV? They may want to consider the legal implications of using that name.
 
Old 05-09-2006, 12:21 PM   #18
Not From Around
 
[quote=dangoldman]Before you damn the project as a "knee-jerk" reaction, why not do your homework and rent Anthony's documentary BATTLEGROUND from your local videoshop/Netflix? This is not a work of fantasy, gwangung; Anthony took two videocameras and WENT TO IRAQ HIMSELF to see things firsthand. The New York Times called his film "a movingly human and many-sided portrait of the war" and it was at a screening of this documentary that I realize I wanted to work with someone like Anthony on something like SHOOTING WAR.

If it was some whiny liberal finger-pointing OR a hardline pro-Bush spin, I wouldn't be their artist. The fact that it's JOURNALISM IN IRAQ'S NEAR FUTURE, telling and seeing where things are going from someone who's been there, is what sets this apart from the pack.QUOTE]


Well, okay. But looking at the interview above, I notice you used scare quotes around "2004 `election,'" suggesting that you consider its result (Bush's victory) illegitimate. You also make comments about "manipulation of the herd" and so forth that suggest that you are very deeply angry at the situation the country is in and have little faith in its electorate. I can understand why, based on these sorts of statements and the overall tone of the interview some people would assume the work will be quite anti-Bush. I caught an overwhelming anti-Bush vibe, and as I'm not a Bush supporter myself I don't have a chip on my shoulder about anything that looks like criticism of him. I also suspect that many of the people who are looking forward to the work are doing so with the expectation and hope that it will be anti-Bush. They've pre-judged the work as well, just more favorably.

Since the work is going to be about "telling and seeing where things are going from someone who's been there" then it deserves to be taken more seriously than a lot of the armchair commentators who keep talking about the war. I would point out, though, that not everybody who has been there and seen the situation firsthand thinks the same things about it. My brother, for example, has served two tours of duty there in the Army. While he is hardly uncritical of everything the U.S. has done there, he is still very much a supporter of the war, and he has a more optimistic assessment of the possibility of building a viable state in Iraq than Anthony Lappe apparently has.

Last edited by Not From Around : 05-09-2006 at 12:30 PM.
 
Old 05-09-2006, 12:28 PM   #19
Not From Around
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by theodoros2
For the love of God, Allah, Zeus, Buddah, e.c...

...these people are real? Is it 1984?

Well, people who don't want to read things they assume they'll disagree with have the right not to read them. If they've still got the ability to exercise that right, then it's certainly not "1984." I think people are a lot better off if they are open-minded enough to read things they disagree with now and then, to learn more about how others think (I WOULD say that, doing what I do for a living!). But they've got the right to choose whether and which things to read.
 
Old 05-09-2006, 02:53 PM   #20
spiderrob8
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by MattBrady
twice through, and I can't see where it's anti-Bush...

I mean, at this point, even some of the president's staunchest supporters are saying we won't be out of Iraq anytime soon, and serious, serious mistakes in strategy were made early on. How is portraying the current status quo extending another 5 years anti-Bush? If anything, you could probably argue that it's anti-Democrat and pro-Bush, as (in this story) no one has been able to make any kind of real change to the gameboard as the pieces have been placed, and the world he's worked hard to create now is still around then. Er, yay - right?

MattB
It’s an admittedly dark vision of the worst-case scenario of where the Bush agenda is leading us. There’s a global oil crisis, the economy is busted, and the Middle East is …again, just horrendous times eleven. Iraq has devolved into a full-on brutal civil war, but our allies are not who you think they’d be. Americans overwhelmingly want out, but President McCain is trapped, like his bosses back in Vietnam, in a war they can’t figure out how to get out of.

I mean, give me a break. You may think this is correct, but it is clearly anti-Bush. Again, that may be fine to you, and you may agree with him and everything. But the article/work is clearly against Bush. To pretend that it is neutral or positive is silliness.
 
Old 05-09-2006, 02:59 PM   #21
spiderrob8
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by dangoldman
Before you damn the project as a "knee-jerk" reaction, why not do your homework and rent Anthony's documentary BATTLEGROUND from your local videoshop/Netflix? This is not a work of fantasy, gwangung; Anthony took two videocameras and WENT TO IRAQ HIMSELF to see things firsthand. The New York Times called his film "a movingly human and many-sided portrait of the war" and it was at a screening of this documentary that I realize I wanted to work with someone like Anthony on something like SHOOTING WAR.

If it was some whiny liberal finger-pointing OR a hardline pro-Bush spin, I wouldn't be their artist. The fact that it's JOURNALISM IN IRAQ'S NEAR FUTURE, telling and seeing where things are going from someone who's been there, is what sets this apart from the pack.

I do hope you come check it out on Monday. Peace.

Ok, so he was there. I could line up a dozen people who were there or continue to be there, who have a different view. You could do the same. The fact he was there doesn't mean he is not interpreting it based on his own personality, predilictions, leanings, etc.

The people who were there who interpret things very negative;ly get a lot of attention. But many people who were there who interpret things more positively do not.

to take an extreme, Al Jazeera has one story, CNN has another, Foxnews yet another. and yet all have reporters who were there, all are interviewing soldiers or Marines or civilians who were and are there.

and yet all come to different conclusions. Which is fine. But I am not going to pretend like being there one had to come to the same conclusions or edit things the way he did.

Heck, you got mothers whose son died who despise Bush and mothers whose sons died who think he was wonderful to them.

No matter what the Ny Times says.

Last edited by spiderrob8 : 05-09-2006 at 03:03 PM.
 
Old 05-09-2006, 03:09 PM   #22
spiderrob8
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin Street
Then you should turn off your computer and stay off the Internet. And don't read any newspapers or watch TV. Or heck, why go outside? You might run into a war veteran or look at a gas pump.

Right now, we're all living in the world that Bush made. Pretending that everything's fine and prejudging any kind of story that has the slightest chance of bursting your bubble won't make reality go away.

But see, reality is in the eye of the beholder. Somebody could see the gas prices and not care, or blame china and India, or OPEC, or every President who failed to get us off it for the last 40 years, or environmentalists, or whatever.

You might find many war veterans, perhaps in the majority (they certainly were at the time of the 2004 election) who support Bush and disliked Clinton. or you might find a war veteran whose a nutcase and insane and thinks the President is the man on the moon.

Negativity gets attention, positivity rarely does. and people's own biases and interpretations matter to reality.

The GREATEST GENERATION is a different reality than CATCH-22 or SAVING PRIVATE RYAN or SLAUUGHTERHOUSE FIVE. and yet each are talking about the same events, in some respect.

The majority of WWII veterans supported that war, and many made this country. Some talk about war stories all the time and glories others hate that war , were ruined by it, can talk of nothing but atrocities or can't open up about it at all.

They are all a piece of the same reality
 
Old 05-09-2006, 03:59 PM   #23
MattBrady
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by spiderrob8
I mean, give me a break. You may think this is correct, but it is clearly anti-Bush.
I think it's odd that status quo projected five years hence is "anti-Bush." What does that make the now?

Again, as I said, I see it more as anti-Democrat or even anti-moderate Republican, in that no one has been able to make any kind of real change in the world in five years.

MattB
 
Old 05-09-2006, 04:13 PM   #24
spiderrob8
 
But it is saying the world is screwed up because of W's policies. President McCain is stuck in the same dilemna as others were in Vietnam (like Nixon), trying to clean up a mess they didn't create.

If it was pro-Buish for example, Iraq in five years would be doing much better. The fact that it is a disaster with no end in site, dare I say quagmire, in the story, is anti-Bush. The world sucks because of where the "Bush agenda" is leading us. Direct quote. Others can't fix it because Bush screwed up so much.

That may indeed be correct-maybe the only rationale thing is to be anti-Bush. But it is still anti-Bush.
 
Old 05-09-2006, 04:31 PM   #25
MattBrady
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by spiderrob8
If it was pro-Bush for example, Iraq in five years would be doing much better.
What in the world do you base that on? The track record so far? I think his mother loves him, but I kinda question that even she'd give him that much benefit of the doubt. Let's not confuse "pro-Bush" with Bush's Happydreamplace. Very different things.

Quote:
Originally Posted by spiderrob8
The fact that it is a disaster with no end in site, dare I say quagmire, in the story, is anti-Bush.
Wha? So it's everybody else's fault, except his? If this news of this comic came out in late 2004, and instead of 2011, it was set in 2006, would it have been seen as "anti-Bush?" I'm still seeing this as all very cause and effect, and still am not clear on how projecting that, in 5 years, if the effects of what was started by Bush are still going on, the story is "anti-Bush."

Quote:
Originally Posted by spiderrob8
The world sucks because of where the "Bush agenda" is leading us. Direct quote.
Actually, the quote was: "It’s an admittedly dark vision of the worst-case scenario of where the Bush agenda is leading us," which is differnet from how you put it, though how you put it proves your point.

Again, is it a dark vision of the future because of Bush's policies, or because there was no political resistance to his agenda? I'm still seeing this as indictements all around, though you think it's persecuting one individual in particular...

MattB
 
 
   

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