Whenever the world is in trouble, it's good to know we can count on the pioneers of art comics to cobble together another half-assed trash blog to "fight censorship." This particular trash blog--Resist!, which will also be printed as a newspaper--is brought to you by a Comics Family unrivaled in its sheer quantity of trash opinions over the last year or so: the Mouly-Spiegelmans.
If you like this, you'll LOVE artist Jim Agpalza's portfolio of terrible genitalia art.
Yes, mother-daughter team Françoise Mouly and Nadja Spiegelman evidently read a University of Phoenix-grade women's studies syllabus somewhere and now they have some opinions on which they hope to incite a revolution...by not paying mostly female cartoonists to draw bad political cartoons for their shitty tumblr? Cool. Good luck with that, ladies. I see that Roz Chast has already contributed a totally uninteresting drawing of Trump rendered on a scrap piece of computer paper. V. exciting. No doubt art comix fans everywhere are praying that Art Spiegelman will draw a trash cover for the New Yorker and complete this circle. Then with all the money he makes off it Mouly can continue not funding like a million more trash blogs to fight the power. Vive la resistance.
Pull yourselves together, Spiegelmans. I continue to believe you're smart people, but this is getting ridiculous.
2. Political spew: special comics edition
With full knowledge that this tidbit is destined to be misconstrued as "lol, this liberal wants a white power Pepe": I've been thinking a lot about satire lately, particularly the parallels between the anti-PC conversations we've seen in alt comix over the last few years and the alt-right's "ironic" Heil Hitlers, etc.
Did you read that insane profile of Steve Bannon last week? It's bananas--possibly the craziest thing I've ever read in my entire life, even now that everything's crazy. Here's the part I keep thinking about:
Irreverent streak. Irreverent. Streak. Mr. Bannon and Mr. Brietbart share "a common irreverent streak." An irreverent streak that consists of an unhinged belief in white supremacy and the notion that only property owners should vote--aka "populism" in the parlance of our times, now that words have no meaning.
Predictably (because I've been blathering on about this stupid thing, which is my personal Zapruder film, for more than two years now...I'm basically a half-step away from joining the Jesus guy with the megaphone outside of Old Navy to better preach my message about how Gary Groth came to earth to be a fucking asshole) I was reminded of Fantagraphics' folksy press release on Fukitor. Here is your weekly reminder of how that cutesy press release, which is titled "FU, Buddy!" reads in part:
What about work that doesn't quite fit into our standard business model? Work by relatively unknown cartoonists that's innovative, quirky, idiosyncratic, oddball, experimental, or downright crazy, work by established cartoonists that's simply off-kilter or too obscure to sustain a mass market release?Why, you might even call Jason Karnes irreverent. I mean, what else would you call a guy who draws a bunch of ritualized gang rape and crazed Muslims being murdered? Or for that matter, the guy who publishes it?
Reality and especially language right now are slipping on a broad scale, and they're slipping in a way that they slipped in comics quite a long time ago. That's not unique to comics, exactly; you'll also see a similar sort of resonance in discussions about comedy, about pop culture, and from what I have come to think of as the Fake Left (people like deBoer and Chait who pin the ills of society on political correctness). But the alt-right's particular take on irony--eg, Richard Spencer saying that "Heil trump" was just a goof...well, that's some Groth-grade "satire" right there. At some point along the way, irony became plausible deniability. That's been happening for a while across the political spectrum--and it's now being exploited with real skill by these opportunistic shitlords.
In related news, I've been compiling my favorite descriptions of Bannon in a special file (Bannon burns.doc). It is literally the only good thing to have come out of this election. My favorites so far are "Robert Redford dredged from a river" and "sozzled nazi werewolf." Please submit your favorite Bannon burn in the comments. Originals are also welcome. This is all I have. Thank you.
3. Pepe the frog update: I was so right about that
So long as I'm complaining about Fantagraphics, I just want to take a quick moment to revel in how deeply right I was about that whole Pepe the Frog thing. (Claim victories in this life where you can.) I recently noticed a very good comment on an old post here that I missed till now due to what I will euphemistically call my email situation, which basically consists of me randomly choosing about half my emails to not read or respond to for a really long time, if ever. Email is my new voicemail, basically. My inbox is irreverent af.
Philippe Leblanc wrote:
In addition to your comment about Matt Furie and Pepe, I came across this interview on CBC’s As it happens between Carol Off and Matt Furie. I think one of the most surprising thing was how he was framing the Anti-Defamation League as his oppressor, not the alt-right. It was weird to hear him say that he feels he’s much more a victim of the ADL than the alt-right reappropriation of his cartoons. “They put on their lists and now I’m associated to racist cartoons” seems like a weird take on the situation.Thank you so much, Phillipe. I found this clip extremely affirming. Reader, if you're into me being right about something even a fraction as much as I am, I recommend you listen to that clip, which validates everything I had ever thought or felt about Matt Furie and his stupid piss frog. Sometimes when I have an opinion that's different from everyone else's I worry I'm just being uncharitable or something, but no--I was just super right about that. Oh hey btw Fanta, how's that #takebackpepe campaign going, anyway? jk, I don't have to look that up to know I predicted that right.
http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2695634079
I'm sorry I'm so disgruntled now. It's hard for me too. :(
4. Your girl had a long talk with Nick Hanover about the comics writing landscape.
Speaking of disgruntled! Have you always wanted to read thousands and thousands of words about why I think fanboys did 9/11? Great news, all your dreams are coming true. Inspired by an Epic Bummer Post by Abhay Khosla, Nick wanted to do a back-and-forth about some of the stuff that we find frustrating in comics reading and writing and shit-talking. Spoiler alert: it's absolutely everything. Click on over to Loser City. ----->
5. 2dCloud Kickstarter
2dCloud is very good and their seasonal Kickstarter is also good. It's good to have good things. Let's not fuck this up.
From Perfect Hair by Tommi Parish
6. Not Even Comics
For your consideration, in preparation for a movie post I hope to get around to writing soon:
The movie this is from is still playing in some cities, I think? For whatever reason it was here for just one night but maybe other places are showing it in a more normal convenient way? My parting advice to you is catch it if you can.
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