The Four Color Media Monitor

Newsbusters (via Colossus of Rhodey) reports that Frank Miller's done another good deed by criticizing the horrific Occupy Wall Street movement. Before that, the leftist UK Guardian wrote an exploitive speculation that Batman would make an ideal hero for the Occupy movement, and cites at least one of Miller's Batman works, Year One. I'm sure they'd be quite stunned if they realize that far from condoning such an out-of-control socialist movement, Miller has been seriously critical of the Occupy lubricant:

The “Occupy” movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of our blessed First Amendment. “Occupy” is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.

[...] This is no popular uprising. This is garbage. And goodness knows they’re spewing their garbage – both politically and physically – every which way they can find.

Wake up, pond scum. America is at war against a ruthless enemy.

Maybe, between bouts of self-pity and all the other tasty tidbits of narcissism you’ve been served up in your sheltered, comfy little worlds, you’ve heard terms like al-Qaeda and Islamicism.

[...] In the name of decency, go home to your parents, you losers. Go back to your mommas’ basements and play with your Lords Of Warcraft.

I'm glad to see Miller recognizes reality, far more than Stephen Kelly at the UK Guardian does. For a writer who notes "the danger of using pop culture icons as shortcuts for our own political values" Kelly might want to consider that turning Batman - or any other famous comic book casts for that matter - into heroes for anarchists would only be throwing away all the positive beliefs that the DC/Marvel heroes came to embody over the years.

Meanwhile, some of the most pretentious so-called comics sites like Comics Alliance and even CBR continue to promote the Occupy movement in their own way by blatantly writing about comics-style material appearing at the protests and even so-called comics intended to raise funds. I think all that money wasted on such items would be better spent on something like an education, or even some classic older comics, since much of today's output has long been terrible.

Speaking of which, one does have to wonder: how long will it be before Marvel and DC start fawning over the Occupy movement in their comics and drawing a false portrait, in contrast to the negative portrayal of the Tea Party featured in Captain America, for example? I fear the answer to that may not be hard to guess.

Labels: Batman, good artists, good writers, politics