CBR interview with Chuck Dixon from SDCC
Here's an interview CBR did with Dixon at the SDCC, where he again addresses conservatism in the medium:
On whether conservative writers are unfairly criticized when writing liberal characters and how it can often be tough for them to find work: There are a lot of closet conservatives in comics and I'm not about to out them here now. I got so many 'attaboys on that "Wall Street Journal" [article], but the 'attaboys were followed by "Don't mention me or my name" because you've gotta protect your career. I mean, it's real. And they may say it's not, but it is. It goes beyond politics. A lot of comic book editors are so easily butthurt. If you don't like the same music act that they like they'll put you on a list. ... I criticized a guy's favorite movie, and I liked the movie, but I had a slight criticism of it and he didn't like that, and I never worked with him again. But of course they never say, "You can't work with me anymore because you didn't like this movie a much as I do," but...I wonder if that guy he speaks of was Joe Quesada? After all, Dixon hasn't worked for them in a long time, far longer than the time he last worked for DC, and Tom Brevoort hasn't been any kinder to him, proving that no matter how much he'll refrain from adding his personal politics to these franchises, they still don't like him.
I was on a panel today with Denny O'Neil and he pointed out, "You are seeing two political extremes sitting right next to each other." We couldn't be better friends, we couldn't have worked closer together, we couldn't have had a better personal and professional relationship -- we don't agree on a damn thing outside of comics but it didn't matter because it was about the comics and it was about the story. Even when we did "issue" kind of comics, we came to a common ground because I didn't want to have an agenda in my comic work. My personally held beliefs are my personally held beliefs. They don't affect my work. They may inform my work on some gut level but I'm not gonna push a party line agenda in a "Batman" comics. That's silly. Nobody wants to read that.
On whether there are any good examples of comics with conservative ideals that would challenge the beliefs of all sorts of readers: What sparked the "Wall Street Journal" article was my collaboration with Paul Rivoche and Amity Shlaes on the book "The Forgotten Man." "The Forgotten Man" is probably the most literate comic project I've ever been involved with. It is conservative in tone. It challenges FDR and the New Deal. It's real history and it's an awesome graphic novel and Paul did an awesome job on it -- worked forever on it -- and I would point to that as that's a good one. It doesn't have super heroes or zombies or witches in it because it's not escapist fiction. [Laughs] It's a historically-based graphic novel. There's suspense and there's bad guys and there's good guys, but it's all from a conservative point of view -- but it's not right wing militia nut job stuff.Which makes me wonder why people like Ron Marz and Brevoort have an issue with him about it. All they're trying to do is make an argument why a past policy did more harm than good for the economy, and some folks can only think to say it's nonsense? Instead of congratulating Dixon and Rivoche for an interesting venture, all they do is act dismissive or worse. Now, a few months later, I think the time is as good as any for those leftist detractors to just let go of their silly misgivings and thank Dixon and company for saying what they think instead. But alas, they probably won't.
Labels: bad editors, Batman, conventions, dc comics, good writers, indie publishers, marvel comics, politics
I'd like to read "The Forgotten Man," not only because Dixon is writing it, but because actually shows that the New Deal was a colossal failure and that FDR was anything but a good President.
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