The Four Color Media Monitor

I looked at this old entry from Conservative Comic Book Pundit from almost two years ago, which spoke about the backlash against a book Marvel put out called Combat Zone: True Tales of GIs in Iraq, which reminded me of another, similar situation just shortly before it, which I'll get to in a moment:

This comic set off a firestorm - Rich Johnston over at Lying in the Gutters declared that this was the beginning of a neocon take over of comics (or something like that). In any case, his rabid hatred of conservatives came out in his reviews and message board posting over this comic. See - its okay for liberal world views to appear in comics by Mark Millar or whoever is writing Captain America at the time - but have a somewhat conservative journalist attempt to write a comic about the actual Iraqi conflict, and suddenly that's out of bounds.

A year before this, there had been something similar that happened, when opposition came out against the now defunct Crossgen's intention to publish a book called "American Power", written by Chuck Dixon. And the worst part is that, at least at that time, it was easy, because they were already folding.

In any case, I think this could make a good case for why something needs to be done to tell the industry that the time has come for them to start being more hospitable to conservatives who want to enter the fray. Dixon is a definite name to whom they could start thinking seriously about being more open to, but then, the audience also needs to begin by telling them that. If they're unwilling to allow conservatives to have their say, then how can they expect to survive?

On Rich Johnston, I'm not sure, but this seems to be the column in which he mentioned Combat Zone, and I have to wonder if the following was ever so:

Not only has this book been waiting for publication at Marvel for a while, but a number of artists have been approached, started on the book and then left when it's true nature was revealed.

Frankly, I doubt that this was ever the case, if the artists were being paid for their work, so it sounds more as though Johnston was just trying to pander to any anti-warrists who'd be reading his silly entry. (Update: Johnston says in the comments that it's true. I'll take his word for it, but then, if that was the case, then it sure is surprising that the artists would be that hostile to a standing that they don't dig.)

Labels: politics