
Bleeding Cool created this image of what would happen if a Frank Miller written character actually spoke Frank's thoughts. (Click for full size.)
The other day a friend of mine said he was going to throw away his copy of The Dark Knight Strikes Again by Frank Miller because he truly believed in the things he put in there.
I mean come on, this is the man who fought for creator’s rights, right? How could he be against the occupy movement?
Miller spelled it out clearly in his blog. I however, do believe there is a difference between corporate greed and creator’s rights. Creator’s rights is more about being paid fairly and given credit where credit is due. Corporate greed is something else entirely different.
If I threw out every comic I was a fan of because I didn’t agree with the creator, I simply wouldn’t have a collection. So what if Miller disagrees with you? Bendis disagrees with my viewpoints, though I still love his work. Why? Because I love to be entertained. I believe there is difference between being entertained and being offended. If you approach art with the intent of being entertained, then you won’t be offended. However, if you bring what ever baggage you feel is right, you won’t be entertained.
Not only that but any news today is Propaganda, whether you are on the left or right. All I see is the “No you can’t party” and the “Oh no you won’t party”. They fling vile propaganda at each other. So is politics in comics a good thing? I think so. Watchmen and V for Vendetta
are political. In fact Alan Moore was pissed when they changed the message of V For Vendetta in the movie to slam the current President of the United States. They missed the point of freedom, which is something I think we’ve lost.
So next time you get upset about something some one wrote, take a step back and think about the context it was in. Even if his personal blog reflected his views, Bendis’ twitter feed does too, as does several others. There’s always two sides to the story.
Image copyright Bleeding Cool.





Createspace
Createspace
Createspace





I hate overt political messages in comics. I am ok with political themes, but I am a bit disturbed by creators who use the medium to promote their politics. Marvel Apes is probably the worst example of this I know of among the major publishers where the Bush administration was portrayed as the evil apes. I did not buy marvel for quite some time as a result.
DC handled politics at the time in a much better way. Politics were driven largely by the characters, not the creators, which seems like a much more reasonable way to handle it when you are dealing with multigenertaional heroes who belong to your company.
I thuroughly believe though, that creator owned material should be anything goes.
It’s not so much politics in comics that I dislike, I don’t have a problem where characters have their view points. Characters have to be believable as if they were really living. What makes me mad, is when people quit reading some one because of something they said out side of a comic book.