The Four Color Media Monitor

Dixon was interviewed by CBR about his newest Alien Legion miniseries and Winterworld, and also told them what he thinks about injecting so much leftism into corporate owned superhero comics:

You got a lot of attention recently for an article in the Wall Street Journal that discussed the phenomenon of a liberal bias in comics. It seemed like the point you and co-writer Paul Rivoche were trying to make got lost a bit in the shuffle. What did you hope readers would take away from the piece?

The point that Paul Rivoche and I made in the article was that there seems to be a liberal or left-wing bias in superhero comics, and it leads to characters being portrayed in a morally ambiguous manner. In addition to some purely political material appearing in mainstream superhero comics. Specifically superhero comics. If you want to put politics in your own comic, go ahead, that's a great thing. But to put it in mainstream superhero comics and use them as a platform for your own political views is something we object to. And we object to it from both ends. We don't think these characters should be used for anyone's point of views even if they agree with us.

When I wrote these characters, I didn't have them present my political views or any political views at all other than their own that are part of their character. Such as Batman is anti-gun. I wrote a lot of anti-gun speeches for Batman that were well-justified and compassionate. I am not personally anti-gun or anti-second amendment, but that's the character. You don't write it different than what's established. That was basically our premise, that these were iconic characters shared by generation after generation and should be pretty much just left alone as good guys and bad guys.

So you're not saying there should be more conservatism to "off-set" the liberal bias you talk about?

I would certainly welcome more conservative people entering comics publishing, but to do works like "Forgotten Man," a book Paul and I worked on, not to do "Superman" with one superhero arguing one political side and another arguing a different side. It's just not what they're for. They're supposed to be escapist. We read this stuff to get away from that crap not to read more of it.

That makes some sense. To be sure, there are some issues that can be brought up in mainstream that don't qualify as political per se, like drug addiction, a problem that should concern everyone, but there's others that do count as political from a leftist view, such as refusing to take down despots overlording in third world countries like Iraq, and turning backs on those who suffer the worst from dictators, both physically and economically. And if anti-war positions and disrespect for the best of American values are all modern leftist writers are going to concern themselves with, then they'll only succeed in wrecking many good casts in superhero and sci-fi tales. That includes stories where the messages are metaphorical just as much as those based on real life situations.

Do you think the article was misinterpreted by the comics community?

Yeah, I think so. They took it from the headline. I think the headline was rather unfortunate that they assigned to it. Something using liberal as a pejorative, which we didn't do in the body of the work. And it had a paywall, so people were only able to read the headline and a couple lines. Then they assumed what it was about from that point on. Plus it's the Internet and people just base stuff off their assumptions anyway. [Laughs] You can't win there. But it certainly sparked a discussion. And I didn't troll the Internet looking for hate but what reached me was supportive even if people disagreed with me. They were supportive of the discussion.

It was interesting to do. I was in the Wall Street Journal and that's pretty cool. And then the subsequent appearance on Fox News. It's always cool to be on TV. Get a peek at what that strange world is like. I think the Fox thing fired people up even more because certain people just hear the words Fox News and they just lose their minds. We basically just reiterated the same thing we said in the article. That we wished there wasn't as much politics in superhero comics. In superhero comics. I keep stressing superhero. Mainstream, action figure, kids wearing pajamas with their pictures on them. Those guys. Because I keep hearing I don't want any comics to be political and I never said that. Paul and I worked on the "Forgotten Man" which certainly has a political point of view but we didn't put Batman in it.

Some leftists had their minds made up from the very start what they thought of Dixon's view, and some can't seem to stand the Fox channel either, 15 years after it went commercial. But how to get the mainstream companies to stop approving of all this leftist nonsense in their products? The only way to truly accomplish that goal is to buy them out from the conglomerates who own them.

Labels: dc comics, good artists, good writers, indie publishers, marvel comics, politics