Politics In Comics
// January 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Comics, Movies, Scifi, Television, short fiction
One of the things I’ve had to learn to accept as a Conservative writer is that I’m pretty much alone.
Not totally mind you. There are others out there. We have decoder rings and communicate through smoke signals (it’s the only way to be secure).
But regardless of what medium you operate in- books, movies, stand-up comedy or comic books- writers tend to be liberal. In and of itself that isn’t a problem. It would be ignorant of me to suggest that no one should be allowed to express their beliefs in comics– ignorant, and to be sure, hypocritical. Good writing should affect you deeply and will always make you think, even if you disagree.
So I’m not talking about censorship. I’m talking about ugliness.
More and more lately, I find myself having to make excuses for writers of whom I am a fan. No, I won’t name anyone. I read comments both online and even in comics that basically insult me as a fan and a consumer. I realize that a majority of the writing community is left-leaning, but why do they assume that their audience is as well? I won’t throw polls and statistics at you, but the majority of Americans are right leaning on some level (which isn’t to say totally). But even if we were only 40% of your audience, why would someone want to insult us for a cheap laugh? It’s the equivalent of going to a Klan rally and telling black jokes. It may be funny to a few people who think that way, but to the rest of us, it’s just sad.
It’s hard to look at someone you used to admire and think that they have no problem with insulting you just because you disagree with them. When other people do it, I get angry. But in these situations, well- it just makes me sad.
The Comics community is pretty insular. These days everything feels like a war. Like sides are trying to get you to choose between them in a violent, grizzly game of Red Rover, Red Rover. Do we as fans and writers need to be like that? Isn’t the industry on unstable ground as it is?
I’m not saying we should hold hands and hug or something. But maybe we should leave the politics to the news networks.
Just saying.
