Topics like Magneto, Kitty Pryde and Sabra at the NYCC

A writer on Times of Israel tells about his visits to Jewish-themed panels at the NYCC, and what he thinks of similar creations in the comics themselves. For example, Magneto:

Magneto brings a specific Jewish history into that broader metaphor.

Introduced as an antagonist in the original X-Men series, he acquired a more complex background under writer Chris Claremont, whose work established his history as a Holocaust survivor. His conflict with Charles Xavier became more than a contest between two powerful men. It became an argument about whether coexistence can protect a vulnerable minority, and what happens when someone no longer trusts that promise.

That history helps explain Magneto’s worldview without excusing every action he takes. A survivor’s fear of renewed persecution is understandable. His willingness, in some stories, to dominate or endanger others remains open to moral judgment.

X-Men: Magneto Testament takes readers back before those arguments, to the child who had to live through the catastrophe.

Written by Greg Pak and illustrated by Carmine Di Giandomenico, the five-issue series appeared in 2008–2009. It follows Max Eisenhardt, the boy who will become Magneto, through Nazi persecution and Auschwitz-Birkenau. His efforts to protect his family and Magda, a Romani girl, place individual relationships within the machinery of genocide. The collected edition includes historical endnotes and a teachers’ guide.

I think the saddest part of this is how the writer does not address how writing quality went downhill post-2000, and whatever redemption Magneto saw in writing back in the 80s was taken apart, with the last storyline prior to leftist Grant Morrison's shoddy run in 2001, "Eve of Destruction", being one of the worst renditions, lowering Erik Lensherr to a nasty, one-dimensional cliche. And then Wolverine's depicted stabbing him to death. In the "modern era" stories, it turns out Magneto survived, or it was a classic clone established taking his place earlier, but it does little to mend the bad taste Scott Lobdell's last X-Men story at the time left behind. A writer like Pak, who's a product of the modern PC era, does not make me feel encouraged to read whatever he turned out, no matter how he portrays Magneto. In any case, why doesn't the modern PC destruction matter to the columnist? Next comes Kitty Pryde:

Jewish identity within the X-Men is not confined to catastrophe. Kitty Pryde, also known as Kate, provides another important example. Marvel’s official biography identifies her as a Jewish girl from Illinois whose grandfather survived a Nazi concentration camp.

Her presence makes room for a Jewish character whose life encompasses friendship, leadership and adventure. Jewish representation should have room for inherited memory and for the ordinary business of living.

Must I point out even Kitty fell victim to PC tactics the columnist seems uninterested in addressing? I'm sorry, but when you gloss over what went wrong in later years, and act like it literally doesn't matter, that only makes the impact soggy. What really makes it sad is that here, Kitty went on to become a notable member of Excalibur, surely one of the most surreal Marvel series of all, and years later, that was all turned into a sad mockery. Now here's Sabra:

Sabra introduces a different dimension: Israeli identity.

Created by writer Bill Mantlo and artist Sal Buscema, Ruth Bat-Seraph appeared briefly in The Incredible Hulk #250 in 1980 before her full introduction in #256, cover-dated February 1981. A mutant associated with Israeli intelligence, she wears a costume inspired by Israel’s blue-and-white flag. Her name draws on the term for a native-born Israeli, associated with the prickly pear: a tough exterior and a sweet interior.

Her significance is easy to understand. Israel has a place within Marvel’s imagined world, and an Israeli woman can occupy the role of superhero.

Her early portrayal also deserves scrutiny. In her first full appearance, the death of an Arab boy becomes the occasion for the Hulk to challenge her understanding of their shared humanity. The story’s treatment of the conflict is blunt, and Israeli comics creators have criticized the character’s limited depth.

Recognizing those shortcomings does not diminish the value of Israeli representation. It establishes a higher expectation for it. An Israeli character should have an interior life, relationships and moral complexity, rather than carrying an entire country’s meaning in every appearance.

The screen adaptation renewed that discussion. Shira Haas played Ruth Bat-Seraph in the 2025 film Captain America: Brave New World. Although the film changed her background to a former Black Widow operative, it retained her Israeli identity. Claims that the released film erased her nationality therefore miss an important fact.

Umm, even if her nationality was retained, the way the overall movie was written was very poor, dragged the character down with it, and that Bat-Seraph had no super-powers of any kind in the finished product also made a mockery of the proceedings. Also, it sounds like the writer's putting words in the mouths of Jewish comics writers by making it sound like they criticize the fictional character instead of her creators, Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema, for writing her with such limited depth, employing moral equivalence, making it look like Israelis literally don't care if Islamists end up costing their own, and one of the stupidest moments in that story is when the Arab boy Bruce Banner was talking with says he doesn't even read books. The Times of Israel's writer obscures just how embarrassingly bad that all was, and it didn't end there. In 1991, almost 8 years after her last appearance, Peter David wrote a Hulk story where Bat-Seraph was a guest again, and made a bizarre claim that Israeli men beat their wives in frustration over the wars that go on. Even that was poorly written/researched focus, fully obscuring what the Islamic religion's built upon.

Also, perhaps an argument can be made that Israeli/Jewish representation doesn't matter when there's insufficient merit in the finished product? Sabra's appearances at the time had very few positive moments, and unlike the Arabian Knight, introduced shortly after her, she never got a stand-alone story in anthologies like Marvel Comics Presents, recalling the Knight had a story in the early issues titled, "The Demon in the Dunes". It should also be noted the Knight's debut story was more favorable to him than Sabra's was to her, and no objective view was taken of how the Knight's 3 wives-through-polygamy wore niqabs. When Contest of Champions came about, that actually depicted the Knight as negative towards Sabra, but even then, the writing was still very weak, right down to how the Knight was the one who got to snatch up one of the artifacts the heroes in the tale were after. And then, look who's participating in panels at the NYCC itself:

These conversations will also have a home at Comic Con. According to the announcement Roy Schwartz shared, “The Year of Jack Kirby: A Star-Studded Celebration!” is scheduled for Thursday, October 8, from 5:45–6:30 p.m. in North–Room 408. The announced participants include Chris Claremont, Jim Starlin, Adi Granov, Dean Haspiel, Jeremy Kirby and Schwartz.

“Jewish Identity in Comics” is scheduled for Sunday, October 11, from 12:15–1 p.m. in North–Room 406.1, with Alex Segura, Julian Voloj, Michal Schick, Neil Kleid, Sarah Singer and Schwartz. Attendees should check the convention’s current schedule for changes.

Far-left Segura is part of the proceedings at NYCC? Well I didn't think what was already in description about the convention was appealing, so I guess this is just an extension of the dreadful farce. What I do realize is that he's probably trying to compare illegal immigration from bad places like the Islamic world to anti-Jewish persecution, and if so, that's wrong and offensive to the intellect. Mainly because, if the illegal immigrants have no intention of abandoning the Religion of Peace, then how can they possibly be called "refugees" when they're actually hell-bent upon forcing their twisted beliefs upon civilized people? Near the end of the article:

Magneto’s childhood asks us to remember the human being beneath a frightening reputation. Kitty Pryde makes space for Jewish life beyond persecution. Sabra raises questions about how Israeli identity can be visible without becoming a caricature.

Again, that "human being" was thrown out around the turn of the century, and some of Sabra's appearances in the 45 years of her creation were caricatures. Even Shadowcat hasn't always fared well, but the buffoon writing the Times of Israel item simply won't show the courage to lament how anything from Marvel and DC since the turn of the century was massively damaged for the sake of woke garbage renditions. But it's nothing new to me that quite a few "historians" are rather unconvincing and don't make very good commentators either on pop culture, never examining the positives and negatives in depth. That's why some history books might offer a meatier look at past conduct pre-2000, but then, if they were published more recently, they never take an objective look at the newer writers and editors in charge to see if they're doing a good job or not, if at all. And that doesn't bode well for the industry's artistic health.

More propaganda being published in favor of NYC's illegal-immigrant-pandering comic

The New York Times (archive link) published a puff piece favorable to NYC's propaganda comic that sides with illegal immigration, and against ICE. Worst, in case it wasn't mentioned before, its writer and artist are veterans of the regular industry:

As New York City middle school and high school students return to classrooms this term, they are receiving access to “Know Your Rights,” an educational comic book that prepares individuals for encounters with federal law enforcement officers.

It is the latest release by Civics for All, a program of the city schools’ department of social studies and civics. The program began in 2020 and now includes 45 comics. The print run of “Know Your Rights” is 140,000 — half in English, half in Spanish. It is also available digitally in 14 languages.

The comic presents vignettes, based on real events, about encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including guidance specific to New York City that emphasizes knowing your legal options at home, at work or walking to school. In easy-to-follow scenes with clear and brightly colored artwork, the story gives readers legal hotline numbers, and advice on planning ahead, organizing documents and memorizing emergency contact information.

“Know Your Rights,” written by Alex Segura and drawn by David Hahn, was suggested by members of Project Open Arms, a city school system effort to support immigrants, including asylum seekers. They saw value in helping students and families understand the rights that come with being an undocumented person.

I think Hahn drew stories for Bill Willingham's Fables series years ago, and wonder what the latter thinks of having worked with such leftists today, if they were going to go miles out of their way and throw their support behind tales that're hurtful to the USA? As for Segura, he's been quite the left-wing propagandist himself for some time, and he worked at Archie in the past 15 years, where I'm sure he had plenty of grimy stuff to foist on it.

Using comics and graphic novels in schools is not new. “Maus,” by Art Spiegelman, in the 1990s “broke a lot of barriers in terms of the acceptance of comics,” Hillary Chute, an English professor at Northeastern University, who specializes in comics and graphic narratives, said in an interview. She was a graphic novels columnist for The New York Times Book Review from 2018 to 2022.

I'm sure the citation of Maus was deliberate too, based on Spiegelman's leftism. After all, who in the MSM cares today about Will Eisner's GNs like A Contract With God? They don't think that broke any barriers by contrast, right? Surprisingly, the NYT's writer does give space for a conservative to comment on the propaganda comic:

Jennifer Weber, a fellow specializing in education policy at the Manhattan Institute, the conservative think tank, said in an interview that using comics is not a bad thing, but that “Know Your Rights” portrays immigrants as the protagonists and ICE as the antagonists, which is “one-sided.”

For civics lessons, “I would say that you would absolutely need to understand the other side,” she continued, adding that the comic misses an opportunity to teach readers about why ICE was formed and to showcase Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable searches and seizures.

But that's not what the propagandists bankrolling this comic at City Hall are doing, and under Zohran Mamdani, things have become much worse with the propaganda ramped up, all at the expense of decent Americans. And then they even have professional comics writers/artists come in and contribute to the damage they're inflicting, with Segura fluff-coating the procedures:

Segura said that writing this comic “felt really important,” adding that it provides valuable information “because we are experiencing a spike in activity from nonmunicipal law enforcement, namely ICE and organizations like that, where it’s imperative not only for kids, but their families and friends to know what their rights are and what the city can do to protect and help them.”

Politics aside, the aim of the comic is to inform. “People should know their rights, right?” Carlin asked. “That shouldn’t be controversial.”

Nor should it be controversial to prevent violent criminals from entering the USA, should it? And Europe? Also, doesn't anybody consider 911 Families, and how the memories of their beloved relatives are being let down and desecrated? Well Segura and Hahn certainly haven't, and this propaganda comic that supposedly "informs" only adds insult to injury. They're even hurting law enforcement whose goal is to ensure safety, and making NYC all the more an insufferable place to live. What "valuable" info does this comic give? And why is the angle of the comic that important in contrast to actual victims of crime, in NYC and elsewhere?

What the studio producing Brubaker's Criminal adaptation says in his legal defense

According to Deadline (via AV Club), here's what Amazon/MGM studios says in response to the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Ed Brubaker:

“His most sensational allegation — that Brubaker pointed a functional firearm at his face and pulled the trigger — is pure invention,” the demurrer adds. “Had that happened, every person in the room, Noohu included, had a duty to report it and in a post-Rust industry on high alert to firearms, someone would have. No one did. Defendants first learned of the supposed incident when Noohu reemerged peddling the story and demanding a payday.” [...]

“The timing of that election gives the game away,” the GT lawyers say of the Sri Lankan American filmmaker who was looking to be made an EP as his PA gig came to an end. “Noohu sat on these supposed claims for twenty months and filed suit on the eve of the press circuit for Criminal. That is the conduct of an opportunist timing his leverage, not a victim seeking redress.”

The part about the pistol is certainly the most questionable, and if the "plaintiff" did this out of spite, perhaps because he's trying to paint himself as a victim based on his Islamic background, that is wrong. And after the Alex Baldwin scandal, yes, it's definitely far more believable that film studios are being more careful not to allow live firearms on set. So, while I don't find Brubaker an appealing writer, and firmly believe he played a big part in bringing down comicdom in more than a quarter century, for now, I will withhold judgement. For all we know, this Noohu is probably a grifter and Islamic victimologist who's trying to get a bigger piece of the pie, and entirely indiscriminate about whether his target's also a leftist. That kind of person is not worth listening to, if it turns out he's filed false complaints.

A lawsuit was filed against Ed Brubaker, but because of the politics involved, judgement should be withheld for now

Brubaker, a comics writer who's been in the business for 35 years, may be one of the most left-wing around, and overrated. But the following news on Deadline about a sexual/racial harassment lawsuit that's been filed against him contains clues why it may not be a good idea to take it at immediate face value:

What may or may not have gone down on Prime Video‘s upcoming Criminal now looks set to end up in a California courtroom.

“This action arises from the sustained sexual, racial, national origin, and religious harassment that Plaintiff ljaaz Noobu, a Sri Lankan American filmmaker with fourteen years of experience in the film industry, endured while working on the production of the forthcoming television series Criminal,” states a 12-claim complaint filed earlier this week in L.A. Superior Court. [...]

“Hired in February 2023 as a production assistant to showrunner and Executive Producer Ed Brubaker, Plaintiff came to the production eager to contribute his talent and technical knowledge to a marquee project, the pretty plainspoken jury trial-seeking document from Burbank attorney Fahim Rahman says. “Instead, he was subjected to a workplace made toxic and abusive by the very individuals entrusted with authority over it.”

With claims that Noobu was subjected to cracks about rape and “demeaning stereotypes” for being the only Muslim on set and asked by Brubaker if the PA was a supporter of Hamas, the suit seeks a variety of unspecified damages. Also named in the complaint as defendants alongside Brubaker are Amazon Services, MGM, Criminal EP Phillip Barnett and others as defendants.

Now, Brubaker is but one of many pretentious scribes in today's landscape, and in hindsight, I don't like his Batman work from the early 2000s. But when I noticed the plaintiff's an Islamic adherent, I had to give pause to taking the claims at face value, realizing it's possible this could be trumped up accusations. That doesn't mean it's impossible for a non-Muslim leftist to abuse a Muslim though, recalling there was an incident in NYC over 15 years ago where a leftist attacked a Muslim cab driver, and a few years ago, a Pakistani Muslim in Seattle, Washington, nearly had his son taken from him for the sake of "transing". But it's clear in the long run that negativity from leftists towards Islamists is rare, especially based on where they're going now with choosing political candidates.

I do wonder however, what Brubaker thinks of Hamas? Or the plaintiff himself? That's what isn't clear from this article. Somehow, it's scarier to think what Brubaker could think, based on any leftist credentials he retains. But if it turns out the plaintiff comes within even miles of supporting such a repulsive bunch, then I'm not sympathetic to him.

For now, we'll have to withhold judgement and let any ensuing trial determine whether the accusations are factual or false. However this turns out though, I'm not interested in Brubaker's resume.

An 11-year-old working on comics wants to remember 9-11, but will the MSM do the same?

NBC-KXAN gave a report about an 11-year-old who's into comics, who wants 911 to be remembered:

Benjamin Faundez loves to tell stories.

The 11-year-old Arlington boy is an avid reader and wants to be a writer one day. He’s also a film director — making tales come to life with a phone camera and help from his younger sister Florencia.

But more than anything, comics are the way Benjamin expresses himself.

“These are all the comics I’ve made over the years,” he said, scurrying into the living room with a thick white binder. Inside were dozens of comic books he’d written over the last three years, neatly slid into protective sheets to keep his creations in mint condition.

Flipping through his immense catalogue, Benjamin says he’s most fond of his fictional protagonist ‘Sacred Sargeant.’

And while he headlines dozens of comics, Sacred Sargeant was absent from Benjamin’s most notable piece — a story about the first responders who responded to the twin towers on 9/11.

‘I wasn’t supposed to be at that spot’

On Sept. 12, 2024, one day after the 23rd anniversary of 9/11, Benjamin’s parents Paulina and Miguel took their family to New York City. While the four got to experience several highlights — including the Back to the Future musical and visiting the site Miguel proposed to Paulina at — Benjamin’s fascination with recent history primarily motivated the 1,600-mile trip.

“Around second grade, I started reading these books called I Survived — historical fiction about 10-, 11-, 12-year-olds that survived natural disasters or events that like Hurricane Katrina or the Chicago Fire,” Faundez said. “I ran upon the book called I Survived the Attacks of September 11… after I read it, I decided I wanted to learn more about what happened on that day.”

That's most amazing a younger reader wants to learn more about the subject. But does the news network want to provide the clear information? Because this article is superficial in the extreme, and doesn't say a word about the Islamic religion's role in the horror. How can the tragedy be recalled properly, and how is anyone to form an opinion if they don't know what the exact motivations were that led to such an abominable incident?

Benjamin took the pin and headed through the security checkpoint but couldn’t leave Passarella empty-handed.

“I was still working on the comic book. I hadn’t finished it yet … but at that time I just felt like I had to give it to him,” Benjamin said.

Then Passarella upped the ante.

“He went back to he went back to his office and took out a flag and explained to me that on the flag was everybody’s name who died on September 11,” Benjamin said.

The two went on their way, but Passarella exchanged numbers with Benjamin’s parents. Then a couple months later, Passarella’s agency shared the encounter online — showing off Benjamin’s work to the world. [...]

‘We’re never going to forget’

100 million Americans are now too young to have a first-hand recollection of 9/11. Some were too young to have lasting memories. Others simply weren’t alive. This includes many people Passarella oversees — something he thinks about ahead of the 25th anniversary on Friday.

“The greatest challenge you have is to instill in our workforce what Ben emits through his conversation and through his actions to never forget those who lost their lives,” Passarella says. “343 firefighters, men and women went in there innocently and their lives were taken.”

Despite being born 14 years after the tragedy, Benjamin plans to continue “remembering and honoring the people who sacrificed themselves and died to protect us from the bad guys and what they did to us and what they did to the country on that terrible day.”

Twenty-five years after the attacks, Passarella says Benjamin represents something unexpected: proof that the stories of that day are still reaching a new generation.

Unfortunately, if the article itself is any suggestion, information about the ideology that led to the tragedy is not reaching new generations. Also notice how they reduce any description of al Qaeda to merely "bad guys". That hardly says anything. At worst, it's obscuring the identities of the culprits. NBC's affiliate should be ashamed of themselves for omitting any meat-and-potatoes information about 9-11. Are they even disturbed by how NYC's Muslim mayor Zohran Mamdani handed a commemoration pen to an aide named Ramzi Kassem, who served as lawyer to an al Qaeda jihadist, an act that outraged 911 Families? That's something the pre-teen comics writer could develop 5 dozen comics about for history research.

It's admirable there's a young comics creator at work who enjoys the medium as much as he does, and his interest in the subject of 911 is also important. But without knowledge, there's no defense, and NBC's doing a terrible disservice to many people affected by the tragedy by omitting crucial facts from the narrative. Let's be clear. Just because the guy in the spotlight's a youngster is no excuse for reducing the entire narrative to something so superficial. We have to hope the young fellow will be able to research the exact facts, and even interview 911 Families/survivors, which could provide some important information that could help produce plenty of history comics for modern students to check out. For now, NBC's only setting a very poor example with their obscurations.

A former director of Marvel films tarnished her entries by celebrating murder

Warner Todd Huston at Breitbart reports a filmmaker named Lexi Alexander, who has some comics-related filmings to her credits, wrote obscene social media posts celebrating the murder of a deputy bank manager in NYC's Times Square:

Lexi Alexander, director of the 2008 Marvel film Punisher: War Zone, is taking heat for celebrating the stabbing murder of a Bank of America employee with an X post featuring Luigi Mangione’s face superimposed on a drawing of Batman’s bat signal.

Bank officer Erin Piacenti was fatally stabbed in Times Square, New York, shortly after celebrating her second wedding anniversary — and the day of her murder was her first day back to work from maternity leave. Piacenti, 32, was walking near West 42 Street and Seventh Avenue when 49-year-old Pamela Cisneros of Queens stabbed the young mother and another person in unprovoked attacks. Cisneros was later shot and killed by police after she threatened them with her two butcher knives.

After the murder, Alexander, who calls herself a “Palestinian filmmaker” (born in Germany to a Palestinian mother and father), jumped to her X account and posted a drawing of Batman looking up at the bat signal, but in the lighted image in the sky, there is instead an image of Luigi Mangione’s face. Mangione is now on trial for the 2024 assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. [...]

Palestinian American film maker celebrates the murder of a random white lady who worked in middle management at Bank of America.

32,000 likes pic.twitter.com/f7e4wxd54b

— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) September 1, 2026

Her X post is still on her timeline, but it has been restricted from being embedded.

In a followup post, she accused everyone who criticized her post of being a “Hasbara bot,” meaning someone working for Israeli propaganda operations. [...]

After Punisher: War Zone bombed at the box office (a $10 million gross to its $35 million budget), Alexander has mostly directed episodes of TV shows such as Supergirl, S.W.A.T., and How to Get Away with Murder.

Well just look at that. More comics creations have been tarnished and desecrated through poor employment choices. As if it weren't bad enough the Supergirl TV show from the past decade was clogged with far-leftism. This is whom the studios that own Marvel and DC are hiring? What this makes clear is that Tinseltown is in serious need of reform, which they're tragically unlikely to work on. It's also got to be telling this repulsive "filmmaker" also worked on a TV show with a title that itself makes light of a serious issue. Alexander's career as a film and TV director will hopefully be over after this horrific case, which strongly hints she's as anti-American as she's anti-Israel. And no doubt, she also hates the Jewish creators and publishers of the comics the films and TV shows she worked on adapted.

Frank Miller tells more to the Wash. Post

One of Miller's interviewers said in one of the recent articles about him that he's got no intention of slowing down with his career, even as he's reaching 70, and as the following interview from the Washington Post makes clear, he's not done with his current promotional tour yet:

The pages of a Frank Miller work are filled with crooked cops, murderers, desperate men and unhinged dark knights. You might expect the creator behind all that darkness to be a bit gloomy himself. Maybe he would be a recluse, like his hero, “Calvin and Hobbes” creator Bill Watterson.

As it turns out, Miller seems to like people. I watched him sign hundreds of autographs at the Library of Congress’s National Book Festival in D.C. on Saturday. He was gentle, chatty and generous with his time despite the crowd overflowing past its designated space inside the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

Unfortunately, Miller doesn't seem to like conservatives, and one in particular by the name of Donald Trump. You could reasonably wonder if any attendants are right-wing themselves, and if they let know this, what does Miller think of them?

Miller helped redefine the modern superhero with Daredevil and Batman before creating celebrated original works such as “Sin City” and “300.” Pop milestones like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” or Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies may not exist without Frank Miller.

His book isn’t a conventional autobiography but a collection of 16 lessons Miller learned while becoming one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Those lessons include knowing your ending, getting your hero into trouble fast and pushing against whatever it is that’s keeping you from what you want to make.

The lessons also include making mistakes: Miller would sketch out many drawings for months before he finally made something that pleased the old master.

But those mistakes don't include apologizing for writing Holy Terror 7 years after its publishing, or blatant attacks on right-wingers, do they? If not, what's his point about trying to stand your ground on the subject of those who'd try to prevent you from developing what you want to make?

“It’s created new opportunities for me to speak more freely to new people who are coming up,” Miller said. “One of the real joys is for me to be looking at drawings and hearing story ideas that people are working on themselves, and to give them some advice on where to go with it.”

I wonder what he'd say to known conservatives? Or anybody who wants to tackle challenging issues? Again, that's not something dwelled upon here.

Miller writes about how his own lessons come from everywhere. He writes lovingly about Adams and his other mentor, Will Eisner, creator of “The Spirit,” but he reaches just as readily toward painters such as Francisco de Goya, Japanese manga writers like Kazuo Koike and music.

If memory serves, he wasn't so loving in his take on Eisner when he produced the American Genius documentary. After "cementing" a putdown in a recording, why now is he suddenly and seemingly talking positively about Eisner again? There was even another certain leftist who came from Israel working in video games at the convention Miller attended:

Onstage, I relayed a question to Miller from Neil Druckmann, co-creator of “The Last of Us” game series and HBO adaptation, who said his story wouldn’t exist without “Sin City.” He wanted to know how Miller selects collaborators, particularly when someone is adapting his work. How does he make sure they won’t abandon the spirit of his stories?

“Friendships,” Miller said. “Most of them come from getting to know somebody … and getting a kernel of an idea that I know would be something both of us could feed each other on.”

Wonder what that left-wing Israeli expatriate was doing there, recalling Druckmann exploited the Last of Us sequel for political propaganda? And to think, that he drew "inspiration" from a series of GNs like Miller's. It makes me think of how, not only does nobody like them seem to consider Superman inspirational material, they don't consider the Fantastic Four inspiration either. Miller may have done some illustrations for at least one story in both of the above, but as the bulk of his work since makes clear, he has a darkness problem, and so do some of the folks who say they're inspired by his work from the 1990s.

In the memoir, he describes learning to respect film and its differences from comics. His early comics success led to work as a Hollywood screenwriter. While he appreciated the medium, he would later write his biggest original book, “Sin City,” as a black-and-white novel, in the hope that it was unadaptable to film. He didn’t want it better known as a movie.

And yet, it was adapted in the mid-2000s, though the sequel was a failure, and it doesn't seem to have been revisited on celluloid since. I do think there's only so much from even standard literature that shouldn't have to be known far more cinematically, so some could wonder if Miller sadly failed to resist the tug of Hollywood influence. And then, a certain matter of defeatism comes up in the discussion again:

Before Miller’s memoir, his comics provided the clearest insight into his mind, but his book makes those thoughts explicit, including his regrets. He looks back on “Holy Terror,” a much-criticized story written out of Miller’s anger after the 9/11 attacks. He now describes it as a rant. Would he ever write another such story?

“I hope I’m never inspired to do so again,” he writes.

Miller urges readers to push walls, especially the ones he helped build. He writes that it drives him “crazy” to see that his version of Batman is now enshrined as foundational.

Once again, Miller, in a way, continues talking out of both sides of his mouth - he urges wall-pushing, but he doesn't want to push it any longer with a GN that took on a challenging issue. But what's this, does he really think it's a shame DKR's vision wound up practically ruining the general take on Bruce Wayne in comics proper? Well he sure hasn't done enough to complain about it. Probably because, as I've guessed before, he doesn't seem to care much about most other takes on Batman save for his own. And to date, I can't even recall him ever chatting about Denny O'Neil and Steve Englehart's writings.

“For one thing, the title ‘Dark Knight’ started appearing in all kinds of comic books,” Miller said in our interview. “Beyond that, he became the unpleasant superhero for a long time. I essentially felt that I was in the business of knocking down walls, and I felt like people had used my work to construct new ones.”

Interesting he should tell this, because again, by the turn of the century, DC editors were practically forcing such a personality upon the Masked Manhunter, and only now, long after Batman's potential was ruined along with countless other mainstream creations, does he have the audacity to tell us this? It's too little, too late.

One more thing I thought of regarding Miller's early writings in Daredevil is the negative take he may have had on the Punisher, and the contrasting take he had when he drew an early Wolverine miniseries co-written with Chris Claremont in 1982. Which would make Miller another scribe with a bewildering double-standard on vigilante-style characters who kill, and it's something else he may not have addressed so far, and probably never will. For now, it's a shame that Miller continues to give signs he sticks with a defeatist position, and some could wonder if his recent positive comments on a movie or two drawing from his writings is another sign of the same. And his continued veering towards the darkness, save for certain challenging issues, is another problem he's got that makes much of his resume since the 1990s so unappealing.

Stars of Marvel movies are making it hard to watch them in hindsight based on their anti-Israel attacks

Mark Ruffalo's easily the most well known actor to appear in comics adaptations like the Avengers movies (as the Hulk), who's recently been viciously attacking the land of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's ancestry. He's done it again in his attack on Paramount over his opposition to a merger with Warner Brothers, as told in this Jerusalem Post article:

US multimedia giant Paramount slammed Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo for invoking antisemitic tropes in an Instagram post on Friday in which he accused Israel of genocide and apartheid.

The outspoken anti-Israel ACTOR, known for his roles in the Avengers films, accused Paramount moguls David and Larry Ellison of “powering some of the most destructive and inhuman forces in the world” and warned of the danger of David Ellison’s bid to combine Paramount with Warner Bros. Discovery.

A spokesperson for Paramount said the company is “troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute. Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong – they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe. This doesn’t deserve a response in kind – and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.”

In his post, Ruffalo referred to Larry Ellison as a “classic oligarch,” and he shared a video of Safra Catz, vice chair of Oracle, discussing the technological assistance the company provided to Israel following the Hamas-led October 7 attack.

Ruffalo encouraged his followers to “look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”

What Ruffalo's been up to gets even worse with his and several other actors' support for a jihadist:

Over 20 actors who have appeared in Marvel films have joined a campaign calling for the release of convicted Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti, according to an Instagram post published on Friday by the group, freemarwannow.

Among the actors who have joined the "Freedom for Marwan" campaign are Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Doctor Strange; Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk; Ian McKellen, who plays Magneto; and Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, and others. [...]

Barghouti is a former leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a terrorist organization that carried out many suicide bombings and shooting attacks during the Second Intifada.

According to Israel, Barghouti orchestrated or was responsible for, among others, the following attacks between 2001 and 2002: the murder of a Greek Orthodox monk on the road to Ma’aleh Adumim; the shooting attack during a bat mitzva celebration at a banquet hall in Hadera that killed six Israelis; a shooting spree on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem during which two Israelis were killed and 37 people wounded; a shooting attack in Neve Ya’acov in which an Israeli policewoman was killed; the murder of an Israeli at the Bashkevitz coffee and spice factory in the Atarot industrial zone of Jerusalem; the suicide attack perpetrated by Daryan Abu Aysha at the Maccabim checkpoint in which two policeman were wounded; the shooting spree at the Seafood Market restaurant which killed three Israelis.

It's going to be very hard watching these performers from live action Marvel movies playing their roles for a long time now, based on what they've just done in the now, even if they're playing villains. Their ignorance is stunning, and most chilling is, what if they fully know what Barghouti did years ago?

A rabbi writing for VIN News described the whole repellent case as follows:

Imagine that the Superheroes known as the “Avengers” were fighting for the wrong side. Say, for example, for the Nazis. Well, it is not such a stretch anymore. But it is not the Superheroes – it is the actors who play them.

Somewhere in a publicist’s office, likely, in Hollywood – a decision was made. A list circulated. Names were added, one by one, each signatory presumably assured that the others had already looked into it.

Nobody looked into it.

More than twenty actors from the Marvel Cinematic Universe — Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, and a supporting cast long enough to fill a closing credit scroll — have signed their names to a demand that the United Nations and the governments of the world work to free mass-murderer Marwan Barghouti from an Israeli prison.

The statement voices grave concern for his imprisonment and his treatment inside it. Grave concern. That is the entire emotional range on offer, and it is expended in full on behalf of the man serving five consecutive life sentences for murder.

For the five people he was convicted of murdering, the statement has nothing. No sentence. No clause. No name. Twenty-plus celebrated artists, working presumably with the assistance of professional wordsmiths, produced a document about a quintuple murder conviction that manages never to acknowledge that anyone died.

I'll never be able to watch a lot of these particular movies ever again, realizing just how far into the abyss the twisted perspective of the actors in the Marvel movies goes. They've desecrated the memory of many Jewish comics creators with this abominable act of theirs, and it's stunning they'd even take the roles they did in comics adaptations to begin with. The Marvel live action movies aren't aging well, as a result of what the actors who played the casts in the films have been doing lately.

Update: VIN News announced the Israeli foreign ministry condemns the Hollywooders glorifying Barghouti:

Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Monday denounced a Hollywood-backed campaign calling for the release of Marwan Barghouti, a senior Fatah figure serving five life sentences for directing terrorist attacks during the Second Intifada, saying celebrities cannot rewrite his criminal record.

“Hollywood can manufacture superheroes. It cannot manufacture Marwan Barghouti’s innocence,” the ministry said in a statement posted on social media. “Five murder convictions. Five life sentences. Five victims of his terrorist plots.”

The ministry urged the public to remember the victims rather than “glorify their murderer.”

The rebuke followed a new wave of support for the “Free Marwan” campaign from more than 20 actors linked to Marvel films and television productions, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton and Ian McKellen. Campaign organizers say more than 200 cultural figures — actors, musicians, writers and directors — have signed on since Barghouti’s family launched the effort late last year with groups in the United Kingdom. [...]

The Foreign Ministry’s statement did not name individual actors but framed the celebrity drive as an attempt to recast a convicted terrorist as a political prisoner. “Remember the names of the victims,” the ministry said, “instead of glorifying their murderer.”

An absolutely correct point to make.

Art Spiegelman continues his far-left act

The UK Guardian interviewed far-left cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who says America's in need of a "counter-revolution", which sounds very appalling coming from his perspective. And when he began drawing comics again after a hiatus in the post-911 years, this is what he did:

He produced a series about 9/11 for the German magazine Die Zeit, which was later run by other European magazines and American Jewish weekly the Forward. On one page he describes himself as “equally terrorised by al-Qaida and by my own government”. He felt that other American publications were too quiescent in the aftermath of the attacks, and not yet receptive to his fear that the US government was using 9/11 as cover for a massive crackdown on civil liberties and to launch xenophobic wars. “Sigh! It’s hard to be an artist who is consistently Seconds Ahead of His Time,” he writes in the foreword to In the Shadow of No Towers, a book that compiled these comics and is being reissued to mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11. (Although, he says, it may come out late – a shipment has been held up in the strait of Hormuz.)

Why was he so alert to the implications for US civil liberties? “Well, my tendency is not to trust the government, so that came easily,” he says. “But it also seems so obvious, like all of a sudden there were police cars and military trucks on Canal Street. We were being told where we could walk, where we couldn’t walk, what we could say, what we couldn’t say. It’s visceral. It’s not like: ‘OK, I’ve read this book on propaganda and here’s how it works.’” Spiegelman notes the direct link between the post-9/11 security crackdowns and some of the excesses of the Trump administration: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Ice, was created in the aftermath of the terror attacks.

Sounds like he doesn't respect special rules set in place for security reasons. And he seemed less offended by al Qaeda's behavior than by his government's. Very troubling. Let's be clear. The Bush administration did do some bad things. But to say it was inherently wrong to deploy security measures in the USA meant to prevent further jihadist attacks at the time is very disturbing, and takes away from the more serious issues involved. Though if Spiegelman doesn't trust the government, is that only when a right-wing government's in office? Does a left-wing government count?

Also note how he's indicated he's anti-ICE, and that too says something, considering how many sex offenders infiltrated the USA, and some of al Qaeda's terrorists also got into the country through lax immigration policies, and, with the spread of Islam in the USA, things could chillingly get worse. Is that what Spiegelman wants? I don't know, but the following is very chilling:

When it comes to 9/11, however, Spiegelman’s perspective has shifted. He no longer views the day as an “end of the world moment”. “It was a big deal. But it was a small big deal compared to the big deals that are going on now,” he tells me. “I’d much rather be in New York than in Iran, for example.”

This is disgusting, because it minimizes the tragedies and losses of 911 Families, many of whom recently launched a petition to have NYC mayoral incumbent Zohran Mamdani barred from the 911 Memorial, based on some of the most offensive things he's said and done that also minimize the repulsive incident from a quarter century ago, along with the memory of the actual victims. And Spiegelman's comment on Iran is fishy. Does he believe it wrong for the Trump administration to take down a barbaric dictatorship? I don't know what Spiegelman believes in fighting for at all.

Around 50 minutes after Spiegelman fires up his Nespresso machine, he finishes making two coffees, and we carry them up to his sunny roof terrace, which as he promised has beautiful views of downtown Manhattan. Spiegelman muses that the US’s volatile politics might reflect humankind’s natural tendency to self-destruction. “I guess, after a while, you get restless, so if you get too comfortable you create problems for yourself, even in more mundane, small-time life, never mind as a nation. At this point, we just had the bad luck of having a megalomaniac walking onto the scene,” he says, of the Trump presidency. American politics is, after all, “entertaining if you don’t give a shit, if you’re nihilistic”.

Spiegelman’s mood is sombre as he discusses how Trump has “very effectively dismantled” the country’s democratic ideals: “Whatever the ideals were, we never lived up to them, but at least we had them. Now it’s all so cynical and sordid and stupid.” The president “is cutting off civil liberties and using his powers to squelch dissent and enrich himself in such thoroughly illegal ways, it’s kind of mindblowing”, Spiegelman says, and he finds himself watching in alarm as the “plutocrat in chief” and his “few dozen toadies” get ever richer while ordinary Americans struggle and suffer a “new indignity every day”. He has no hesitation in describing the Trump administration as fascist. “It’s fascism,” he says. “It’s not nazism, per se, but it has a template that it’s following. And it does have to do with othering, which is the basis of what Maus is about, it’s: ‘OK, you guys are mice, we’re cats.’” Maus is among the many books to be banned by various Republican school boards in recent years, but Spiegelman says he has a “predilection” for producing the kind of art people will seek to ban. Sales of Maus spiked in response to the bans.

“I tend to be pessimistic, but this is worse than most things I know,” he says of American politics. “I just don’t see how we get out of this.” The media are struggling with how to convey the stakes in this post-truth era, he explains, the courts are packed with Trump appointees, democratic norms have been destroyed, and there is no effective opposition. The Republicans are “at this point the equivalent of made men in the mafia,” Spiegelman says, “they’ve committed a murder, they’re complicit in something and they have to keep moving as a complicit unit, so it’s very hard to get someone to blow the whistle and say ‘This is crazy.’” The US needs a “counter-revolution”, Spiegelman says. “But I don’t know where to look for it because the Democrats are so timid.”

*Shudder*. That sounds like he wants riots, as if there weren't enough already 6 years ago. And no concrete evidence is given for the claim the Republicans "committed a murder", nor whether the courts are literally packed with Trump appointees, but not Biden's appointees. This is very troubling, and Spiegelman's hatred for right-wingers is very noticeable, making this much sadder.

The Daily Cartoonist notes there's a flaw in their claim Spiegelman was the first cartoonist to win a Pulitizer for Maus:

As we all know the Pulitzers had been handing out Prizes to cartoonists for 70 years before Spiegelman got his. Some quantify Spiegelman’s Pulitzer by explaining that he was the cartoonist to get a Pulitzer outside that Editorial Cartooning category as his Pulitzer was a Special Citation. But even that must be further narrowed down to the first cartoonist to receive a Pulitzer prize for a specific graphic novel since Dr. Seuss had earlier been awarded a Special Pulitzer for his body of work.

And I can't recall Spiegelman ever speaking in Theodor Geisel's defense after a number of the latter's children's books were withdrawn from publication because of alleged stereotypes. The Guardian's errors shouldn't be surprising though; they're a horrible newspaper of poor quality as it is.

Spiegelman's given signs he has a despicable, narrow viewpoint that totally absolves leftists of any mistakes they make, even as he says the Democrats are too timid to carry out his ideas of how to manage business. I have no interest in buying his products, and seriously, I don't find his artwork appealing anyway. The worst part is how guys like him never seem to speak of groups like 911 Families, and don't consider how actual victims of serious crimes feel about anything. His political views are insufferable, and if Trump is what he cares about, it's all he's going to care about. One more reason there's no point in wasting time on any comics and cartoons he illustrates.

Joe Simon's pro-Israel publication in the 1960s

The Canadian Jewish News wrote about the history of a comics-style project the late artist Joe Simon of Capt. America fame worked on following the 6-Day War in 1967 that was favorable to Israel:

After the 1967 Six Day War, the originator of the comic book hero Captain America produced a spoof on the war and its political aftermath. A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to Tel Aviv was a 66-page satirical magazine created and edited by Joe Simon that sold for 50 cents.

Its pages contain photographs of Egyptian and Jordanian leaders with comic-style word balloons and corny jokes. For example: “The height of Israeli gall: while waiting for negotiations at the UN to begin, one of them opened a kosher restaurant in Damascus.” The magazine reflected the swagger across the Jewish world following Israel’s miraculous military victory.

Simon was no stranger to controversial humour. He edited Sick magazine throughout the 1960s which in its first issue described itself as “a grim collection of revolting humour.” It contained tasteless, politically incorrect humour much like the standup routines of controversial comics such as Lenny Bruce, who apparently purchased 100 copies of each issue that included excerpts from his routines. [...]

Simon used his pen and his sense of humour to stand up for the Jewish people. In his Funny Thing magazine, he includes this legal disclaimer:

“The captions in this publication are entirely fictitious. As for the characters, they should live and be well. Except, maybe, for one or two…”

Now that's amazing. The application of word balloons to live action photography is something the satirists at MAD magazine did too at times. Let's also recall Simon was a conservative in his time, and after September 11, 2001, he'd drawn an illustration similar to the cover of the premiere issue of Captain America Comics where, much like Simon and Kirby drew Steve Rogers punching Hitler, Simon drew Cap punching Osama bin Laden. The question now is whether that illustration was ever made public, or if we'll ever see it on display today? If his estate or anybody else responsible for retaining his artwork is withholding that Simon item, that's wrong.

For now, this is a pretty interesting bit of history of what Cap's co-creator did in the years afterwards, and from what I know, Simon did work in comics and other similar forms of entertainment at least until the mid-70s. His support for Israel, along with supporting the USA, is something important to appreciate.

SDCC panel on Jewish influences in comicdom

San Diego Jewish World writes about a panel at the SDCC discussing the Jewish influences in comics history:

Comic-Con attendees packed a panel room to learn about the often-overlooked role that Jewish creators have played in shaping the comic book industry.

Mark S. Zaid, Esq., an Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide advisor, comic book historian, author, and creator of GI’s Rabbi); Danny Fingeroth, former Marvel editor and writer, author of Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero; and Dr. Andrew Fogel, historian of popular culture and author of Superman’s Jaw presented an engaging PowerPoint lecture titled “The Jewish Experience in Comics: Characters and Creators.”

The presentation explored how the Jewish identities and experiences of many of comics’ most influential creators shaped the stories they told and the heroes they created. The panel traced the origins of iconic characters such as Superman, the Thing, and Magneto, examined the personal histories of Golden and Silver Age comic book creators, and discussed whether Jewish cultural identity was intentionally woven into their work.

It's worth wondering if modern audiences appreciate all this in an era where Islamic antisemitism sadly rose after October 7, 2023. Similarly, do modern film audiences even appreciate the Jewish role in building Hollywood? The article unfortunately also brings up an ideologue who's dampened the impact of his notable GN:

The speakers also addressed how publishers approached sensitive subjects such as the Holocaust and examined the lasting influence of Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Will Eisner’s groundbreaking graphic novels on Jewish storytelling in comics.

While Eisner's writings hold up well, Spiegelman's recent, repellent politics can have the effect of damaging whatever impact he expected Maus to have for years to come. That said, who knows if anybody at these convention panels appreciates that Eisner's last GN, The Plot, also did research on Islamic antisemitism?

One of the panel’s most fascinating discussions centered on Nazi Germany’s reaction to Superman. Fogel displayed a German Secret Service newspaper article attacking Superman’s Jewish creators. Germany eventually banned Superman, portraying him as a symbol of capitalist propaganda designed to brainwash American youth. The article specifically criticized Jerry Siegel’s Jewish identity, referenced his circumcision, accused him of using Yiddish rather than German, and labeled him an Untermensch (subhuman). The publication argued that Superman was not the true Übermensch (superman), claiming he violated the laws of science by defying gravity, lacked proper masculinity because of his circus-like costume, and represented irrationality rather than Aryan ideals.

It's interesting they bring up this specific history, because "Nazi" was an acronym for "National Socialists". Do the panelists know that, and did they specify? And what's their own take on capitalism in an era where it's been all but shunned? It's also interesting the Nazi propaganda they cited considers science fiction and fantasy storytelling anathema to their beliefs, indicating they also despised entertainment written for positive reasons.

At the end of the article:

This was one of the most informative and thought-provoking panels I attended at Comic-Con. My husband joined me for the presentation, and despite attending Comic-Con for nearly 20 years, he walked away having learned numerous new historical connections between Judaism and comic books. It was an eye-opening experience that offered a deeper appreciation for the people and stories behind some of the world’s most recognizable superheroes.

Unfortunately, I have a sad feeling that whatever objectivity the panel had ground to a screeching halt when it came to modern issues, and wouldn't be shocked if the panelists would not say even a word about Islamic antisemitism, and whether it should be subject of any kind of comics storytelling. That's why these panels aren't as informative as they could be, yet nobody will point that out.

Artist who worked on TMNT charged with assault on reporter in Maine

Maine Wire reported that one of their staff was assaulted at an anti-ICE protest by somebody who turned out to be an artist who worked on recent Ninja Turtles comics, an artist by the name of Bob Tkacik:

A Maine comic book artist is facing a criminal assault charge stemming from the alleged attack on a Maine Wire reporter covering an anti-ICE protest in Biddeford earlier this month.

Bob Tkacik, a freelance comic book artist known for his work on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, has been charged with assault in connection with the July 13 incident involving Maine Wire reporter Jon Fetherston. The case is expected to be heard in Biddeford District Court unless it is resolved beforehand through the York County District Attorney’s Office.

According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Fetherston was covering an anti-ICE demonstration in downtown Biddeford when he was allegedly struck with a skateboard, shoved, spat on, and repeatedly harassed while livestreaming from the scene. The attack reportedly knocked his cellphone to the ground and interrupted his live coverage. The incident has since been cataloged by the Tracker as an assault on a journalist and damage to journalistic equipment.

The alleged assault quickly drew national and international attention. The incident was covered by Fox News and Newsmax, while Britain’s Daily Express also reported on the attack during Fetherston’s live television coverage, bringing broader attention to concerns over the safety of journalists covering politically charged demonstrations.

The Maine Press Association also condemned the violence, issuing a public statement denouncing attacks on working journalists and reaffirming that reporters must be able to cover news events without fear of intimidation or physical assault. The organization called violence against members of the press unacceptable and urged respect for the First Amendment and the role of journalists in a free society.

It was bad enough when a would-be historian who'd written about the Ninja Turtles committed a criminal offense several weeks ago. Now, an artist who worked on the comics themselves has also tarnished its legacy with an offense of his own. What makes this additionally disturbing is that the same victim had also been threatened by a mosque attendee in the state, and other attendees were also hostile to him. I don't know if he's a right-leaning journalist, but his chilling experiences certainly make clear something's horribly wrong over there. Including how Tkacik's given clues as to what he thinks of law enforcement. Based on which, you could wonder why he even drew Ninja Turtles to begin with.

I looked around to see if there were any past articles about Tkacik, and found this interview on Capes and Tights from 2023, where it says that:

While you have other professional work, some people know you for your ability to draw turtles. Is this something that your enjoy being connected to and what is the best part of being so connected to the turtles community?

To be perfectly honest, it is an honor to be known for this. I think the TMNT community is full of incredible storytellers, artists and enthusiasts, and I can genuinely say, for everyone I’ve met through this connection, I am immensely grateful. I’ve made a lot of very good friends through this work, and I couldn’t be happier.

Is it an honor for him to now be known for breaking the law, and assaulting a news reporter without provocation? The interview says Tkacik published an indie comic of his own, and it'd be strongly advised not to buy it now after what he did, delivering the industry another embarrassing moment. We must hope this terrible incident brings his career to an end, and that the Ninja Turtles franchise holders will no longer allow his employment after what he did. This is exactly why more serious demands must be made by businesses in comicdom for creators to uphold the law, and avoid politicized issues like these. Comic book publishing cannot afford this kind of negative publicity anymore. Would this have occurred if Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman were still in charge of their creations? I don't know, but perhaps this sad case could suggest why some franchise creators just shouldn't sell off the rights to their products.

Eisner awards nominated pretentious scribes

Perhaps I was being too optimistic when I hoped earlier that the Eisner awards was coming off their biases of the mid-2000s. Oregon Public Broadcasting says 3 local scribes, one who's definitely overrated, were nominated:

Three of Portland’s prominent comic book creators, Rupert Kinnard, Kelly Sue DeConnick, and Sarah Shay Mirk, are nominated for Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards — the Oscars of the comic industry, named for one of the first comic artists in American history. This week, they’re traveling to San Diego Comic Con to speak on panels, sign books, and attend the awards ceremony on Friday night. [...]

While DeConnick’s book FML is up for Best Continuing Series, both Mirk and Kinnard are nominated for Best Comics-Related Book, which Mirk described as “the nerdiest, wonkiest category.” For DeConnick, this nomination is one of many throughout her career after winning the award for Best Single Issue in 2022. For Mirk, this marks nomination number four.

DeConnick's one of the scribes who ruined Carol Danvers as a superheroine in the past decade, all for the sake of "feminist" agendas, and wokeism. And what's this Kinnard known for?

Kinnard created the first Black queer comic strip characters, although he didn’t know he was first at the time. Born in Chicago in 1954, Kinnard moved to Portland in 1979 and helped start the queer newspaper Just Out.

He created The Brown Bomber, a nineteen-year-old superhero sporting basketball shorts and a home-made cape, and Diva Touché Flambé, a mystical grade school teacher who knocks sense into closed-minded streetgoers with her power of slapthology.

Together, the duo form Cathartic Comics, a strip that ran in newspapers in Portland and San Francisco, calling out injustice with wit, wisdom, and pride through an intersectional Black queer lens.

What's so special about that in the view of the leftists now running the Eisners? This is all woke cliche by today's standards. And then, here's what Mirk's known for:

Sarah Shay Mirk is a nonfiction comics journalist, publisher, and teacher at Crucial Comix living in Portland since 2008.

Their book Guantanamo Voices: True Accounts from the World’s Most Infamous Prison chronicles the experiences of former Guantanamo Bay prisoners and staff in the form of a graphic novel.

There's something mighty fishy about this book. What if it's apologia for terrorism, since many Islamic terrorists were incarcerated at Guantanamo, to keep them away from the USA's borders?

Kelly Sue DeConnick is a New York Times Bestselling comics author, known for her reimagining of the character Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel.

Her 2026 nomination for Best Continuing Series is shared with David López, the co-writer of FML, a graphic series from Portland-based publisher Dark Horse Comics.

"Reimagining" is precisely the problem, since, not only was Danvers made to look alienatingly masculine in the past decade, her background was forcibly changed as well. And forced, abrupt retcons were becoming pretty common beginning in the early 2000s, with some of J. Michael Straczysnki's machinations in Spider-Man just the beginning. Also notice how they don't refer to Danvers as Ms. Marvel, which is what she was originally titled in the late 70s when the late Gerry Conway first launched the original series at the time. What's so special about scribes who don't care about the source material? This only clarifies the Eisners continue to remain corrupted in whatever values they once had, and serve leftist causes more than anything else. That's why they're not worth paying attention to, any more than the Oscars in Hollywood.

A superficial article about Doonesbury history, and a sloppy one

Earlier this year in May, The Forward wrote about how cartoonist Garry Trudeau dealt with Jewish-related issues in Doonesbury, mainly spotlighting Mark Slackmeyer, possibly the 3rd regular cast member who debuted shortly after Mike and B.D in 1970:

Trudeau’s “Megaphone Mark” — who sported long hair and a bushy beard —was modeled on Mark Zanger, the leader of the Yale chapter of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society). Mark’s first act in the strip is to take over the office of President King, the WASPy president of Walden College, who was based on the actual Yale president, Kingman Brewster. Over the next few months, Trudeau increasingly used Mark’s clashes with his father Phil, a New Jersey stockbroker desperate for his son to “succeed,” to dramatize tensions within postwar Jewish life.

Phil represents a generation of upwardly mobile Jews who believed acceptance in corporate and suburban America required conformity, restraint and the concealing of ethnicity. Mark, by contrast, is openly confrontational, culturally self-aware, and seems uninterested in assimilationist respectability.

Mark’s Jewish identity was not made explicit until the middle of 1971, when he and his college buddy Mike Doonesbury attend a talk by a famous religious crusader. Asked why he has not yet chosen to join the fold and lead a proper Christian life, Mark deadpans, “I’m Jewish.”

At Yale, Trudeau hardly knew Zanger and had much less in common with him than he had with Kingman Brewster, whose ancestors sailed to America on the Mayflower. Trudeau was descended from three generations of Ivy-League-educated physicians. Like his father, the hardworking family doctor Frank Trudeau, the cartoonist attended St. Paul’s — one of the most blueblood of all New England prep schools. And though the young Yalie, like the genteel Brewster, opposed the war in Vietnam, he wanted nothing to do with radical politics.

But Trudeau identified closely with some of the personal struggles of Megaphone Mark. After all, he was also bucking family tradition by becoming an artist rather than a doctor. As Trudeau told me, some of Mark’s quarrels with his father hit close to home. Consider the line that Phil tells Mark in the fall of 1973: “Life is not to be enjoyed, it’s to be gotten on with!” Those words came verbatim from the mouth of Frank Trudeau, though, the younger Trudeau said, “my father and I ended up getting along pretty well and later came to laugh about such harsh comments.”

A key reason why Trudeau saw a part of himself in his Jewish cartoon character is that this ultimate insider also knew what it felt like to be an outsider. For many American Jews of the postwar era, especially those attending elite institutions historically dominated by WASP norms and values, Jewishness came with a sense of conditional acceptance, of not fully belonging. Trudeau had an emotionally similar experience at St. Paul’s, where he felt deeply estranged from the school’s rigid social hierarchy and its obsessive emphasis on athletic status. As the cartoonist later stressed, his four years there were “a tortured time for me.” He hated the school’s culture and never felt fully at home within it.

While this is interesting history, Trudeau diminished whatever impact it had when in the mid-90s, around January 18, 1994, he wrote Mark telling he was homosexual (with Zonker Harris providing a narrative), which is odd, since, while there was a strip around February 10, 1976 where Joanie Caucus was talking to Andy Lippincott, who told her he was homosexual (Trudeau later wrote him passing away from AIDS in 1990), Mark may not have been established as such at the time. What that would suggest is that Trudeau basically retconned one of his strip's established cast members for the sake of an oh-so vital agenda. It adds nothing to the character, and only makes previously established points moot.

Interestingly, if it matters, I'm not sure there were ever any notable lesbian characters highlighted in the strip, unless we consider a cameo by the real life Rachel Maddow, though that's hardly an achievement if it's not a fictional character who could make a more plausible regular. And if there weren't any recurring lesbian cast members in Doonesbury, it beggars the query - why do only homosexual men matter here? And why, if gay men did matter, Trudeau had to turn an established regular cast member into such, but couldn't create a new one like he did with Lippincott back in 1976? Sometimes, I wonder if comics writers like William Messner-Loebs have to shoulder some blame, since he turned the Pied Piper in Flash gay around 1990, rather than introduce a new character who could fill that role. Arguably, Messner-Loebs was one of the earlier examples of a writer who went "woke" in his approach, and it's certainly led to a lot of damage by this point, with Obsidian from Infinity Inc. being one of the biggest victims, since Gerard Jones, who retconned Todd Rice in 1995, turned out to be a criminal, and a lot of the stories Jones wrote were very bad.

Next up, in the past month, the Los Angeles Review of Books discussed the new history book about the now 56-years-old comic strip, and there's at least a few errors here, such as:

Doonesbury’s Slackmeyer came out as gay in 1976. It seems almost quaint now (and then again, not) that Slackmeyer paralleled rock stars like Lou Reed and Elton John, who felt comfortable enough in their own professional spaces to proclaim their queerness with pride. But this was the very first gay character in comics, and dozens of newspapers simply dropped the strip. Their editorial boards deemed it inappropriate for family reading, as if sexual orientation were inherently salacious. Trudeau refused to apologize or put his character back in the closet. He accepted the economic cost of moral clarity. Not content to be absorbed into the system, Trudeau gladly risked loss of distribution for the sake of truth-telling.

Oops, that's incorrect. It was Lippincott, not Slackmeyer, who was the first gay male character in the strip, perhaps also in all comic strips of the times. Most mystifying, I couldn't find any mention of Lippincott in the article. What gives on that? The glaring historical error aside, where do they get off lecturing everybody homosexuality's literally appropriate for children? Have they by any chance noticed what turned up in school libraries in past years? Do tell us about it. And then, there's another potential error here:

In Peanuts, the adult world feels incomprehensible, their speech reduced to onomatopoeia. In Doonesbury, the adult world tilts hypocritical and borderline psychotic, the source of colossal betrayal and moral rot. When Trudeau deployed abstract visual cues to depict presidents—Reagan as an empty brain, Bush Sr. as a “point of light,” Trump as a sentient toupee—he pointed Schulz’s abstractions at a new target: that power is often visually represented by its absence, by the void where thought should live.

I know Trudeau developed a gimmick where he'd depict some politicians as "invisible men", with certain symbols to replace them (Dan Quayle was depicted as a feather, meant to allude to what Trudeau thought of his personality), but I don't think it included Trump, and certainly not of recent, if the panel from last month says anything. But how disturbing that Trudeau's depicting Trump conversing chummily with a character named Trff Bmzklfrpz, a dictator from a fictional country called Berzerkistan, who's supposed to be murderous and antisemitic. Would he have written a leftist politician maintaining such friendships? Something tells me that, despite this, Trudeau doesn't have anything concrete to say about Trump's administration making a deal with Syria's current dictator, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who was a terrorist before, and there's bleak signs he hasn't changed. All that aside, the "joke" Trudeau made about Trump believing something's been named in his honor is one of the cheapest I've ever seen in the newspaper strip to date. What's that about "incomprehensible" again?

If Mike represented the political sell-out, Mark Slackmeyer represented something more urgent: the moral witness to governmental impunity. Originally a campus radical and DJ at Walden College’s radio station, Mark came out in 1976, a move that became a watershed moment for the funny pages. But the 1980s deepened the crisis. As the Reagan administration ignored the burgeoning threat of AIDS—the president refused to even speak the word in public, and homophobic legislatures debated whether infected people deserved treatment—Trudeau used Mark to bear witness. While Bible-thumpers attacked the “morality” of the afflicted, treating AIDS patients as deserving of their fate, Trudeau faced the grim realities of suffering and death. One 1985 panel still grates: Mark stands at a closed-casket funeral for a lover, his face a hollow, blank mask of exhaustion. The caption: “I’m just so tired of being brave.”

When they repeat the error with Mark's history twice, it starts becoming funny enough to fall off the couch laughing. Why wasn't the establishment of Lippincott as gay considered a "watershed moment", according to their poorly researched effort? That aside, what proof do they have that "bible-thumpers" took such a denigrating position? According to Religion Dispatches, that was far from the case. And why no provision of the 1985 strip in question, so we can ascertain the given year is accurate? The following isn't very accurate either:

When B. D.—the strip’s resident conservative and permanent helmet-wearer—lost his leg in Iraq, 35 years of character history freighted the injury. This wasn’t a policy abstraction; it was a friend’s tragedy. Trudeau became a fixture on Ward 57 of Walter Reed hospital, interviewing veterans and their families, detailing their trials and the government’s responses. Following B. D.’s journey through PTSD, Trudeau earned the title “archangel of Walter Reed” from the military establishment itself.

But here’s the paradox Kendall fails to articulate: Trudeau opposed the Iraq War vehemently, yet his humane treatment of its victims earned him establishment gratitude. When you become a “humanist,” you often lose your “teeth.” The military appreciated Trudeau’s compassion for wounded soldiers even as they pursued policies that kept wounding them. They could separate the caricaturist of their commanders from the chronicler of their suffering. They used his moral clarity about individual pain as cover for endless wars.

Regarding B.D, we once again have an error at hand, or at least a lack of historical clarity: in April 21, 2004, after 34 years, Trudeau drew the guy's helmet being removed after he lost a leg in the Iraq war. On the other hand, I don't think Duke and Ching Huan have been seen without their glasses in all the time they've been recurring cast members. Whatever, it's disturbing how the reviewer turns to claiming wars are "endless" because of the USA's conduct, not because of the foreign autocrat tyrants and ideologies that begin them. Such propaganda only lets savages off the hook, and proves the journal's not altruistic. Also, was Trudeau's reason for opposing the war in Iraq because he didn't think they were as dangerous as Iran's turned out to be? If so, I have yet to find him actually saying so. His turn to victim-blaming in the past decade after the Charlie Hebdo massacre certainly didn't help matters.

In 2014, Trudeau stepped away from his daily grind to work on HBO’s Alpha House, and most papers carried reruns of his greatest hits. He still writes a Sunday strip. Mike’s daughter Alex entered the cast, while the Duke (a play on gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson) lived long past his writerly role model to serve as as the proconsul of an Iraqi city. Like Donald Trump, the Duke acts like a monument to the Great American Grift. By the time Trudeau reached the Trump era, satire entered a predicament that made exaggeration almost impotent. Even late-night comics weary of ridiculing Trump, and logic simply vaporizes in the face of his daily harangues. Trudeau’s solution treated Trump as monstrous subtext—an unstable virus distorting his characters’ daily lives rather than a target for direct parody. It was a graceful retreat, but it also admitted defeat.

Sounds like somebody wishes the strip continued daily for longer, if that's what it took to ram Trump for ambiguous reasons. I sometimes wonder if Trudeau stopped drawing daily strips because he had little else to tell in this day and age, and his resort to cheap jokes at this point with Trump certainly proves he's way past his prime.

Doonesbury may have run for a longer time than strips like Peanuts, but has since proven overrated and pretentious, as the swipe at Trump makes clear. Even long before that, from what I could tell, it had long hit bottom. So what good does it do to write up a history book about it when the chances are it won't take an objective viewpoint?

A review of Frank Miller's new biography

Open Letters Review looked at Miller's new biography, Push the Wall, which may not be that long a book, and in the beginning paragraph, and the editor reviewing it appears to be disappointed, and certainly makes clear what they think of one project that years ago, I wanted to think was Miller's way of telling he'd found a valid subject to write about, until he sadly went the defeatist route several years after:

Writer/artist Frank Miller is legitimately legendary in the field of comic books, firmly stationed in a company of three dozen or so men and women who did landmark work. Miller was the creative genius behind black, nihilistic oddities like Ronin or Sin City, the genius behind signpost superhero stories like Batman: Dark Knight Returns or Batman: Year One, and the genius behind black, nihilistic masterpieces like 300 or the “Elektra saga” run in Daredevil. Any one or two of these would guarantee a creator immortality in the comic book field, so Miller’s status is secure no matter what sloppy, downright cracked work he might add to that body of work, incomprehensible things like Dark Knight Strikes Again or, God forbid, Holy Terror.

Sounds like the reviewer believes Miller should never have tackled the issue of Islamic terrorism, ever. And that's the problem, past, present or future. With the biggest one being that the reviewer doesn't even have the courage to make himself clear about that.

But with that said, is Miller really that "legendary"? Hardly. His obsession with the darkness - which today apparently stops at the most challenging of issues like the aforementioned - is honestly dispiriting, and if he didn't succeed in screenwriting in the long run, why must we believe he's that much of a legend? Lest we forget, he acted as apologist for somebody who definitely won't be one now, and the way he noticably remains fixated on a certain president for cheap reasons is dismaying and divisive.

This kind of status imbues his new memoir, Push the Wall, with inherent interest. The many thousands of comics readers who’ve enjoyed their work would very much like to see similar memoirs from all the other greats of the comics world. How fascinating and valuable it would be, for instance, if we had honest, grappling, detailed memoirs from figures like Bill Everett or Gil Kane or Jack Kirby.

Finishing Push the Wall, some readers will be thinking about how fascinating and valuable it would be if we had an honest, grappling, detailed memoir from Frank Miller. This sure isn’t that.

If the book's a disappointment, I can't say I'm surprised. When a guy turns as defeatist of recent as Miller has, you probably can't expect him to deliver the best of biographical material either, nor for that matter a good instruction in how to illustrate. And his art style's been so mediocre for years, whereas even Kane's art style was more comprehensive just years before he passed on at the turn of the century. But the reviewer's right about one thing: if we had serious biographies about Everett, Kane and Kirby, that could be a lot more interesting than what Miller has to offer at this point.

Miller organizes the book around 18 “lessons” about both life and working in the comics industry, and he fills in the inevitable pabulum of old-man-imparting-lessons with glimpses from his own autobiography: boyhood in Vermont, formative exposure to gritty New York and specifically the Greenwich Village of bygone decades, the initial scrambling in the comics industry, the burgeoning success after Elektra and Dark Knight Returns. And sometimes some of these memories, though decked out in the hack-purple prose that’s characterized Miller’s writing for fifty years, are interesting, particularly the Horatio Alger bits before he hit it big, when he was wandering around a pre-Bloomberg New York that would be all but unrecognizable to the city’s current wall-to-wall 1% inhabitants. “I arrived wide open to the strange gifts of the city’s seedy decline,” he writes in one such passage, “the Sodom and Gomorrah of Times Square, the hard-up characters hanging around fleabag hotels by Port Authority, the graffiti and urban dross in the subway, the misfits skulking in the East Village parks after dark, the crumbling, uneasy feeling of it all.”

Miller might not be the most eloquent of writers, but he’s articulate and sure as hell prolific; instead of tarping over the subject with something like “the crumbling, uneasy feeling of it all,” he could have written that feeling. His book is barely 200 pages; Saga Press would certainly have sprung for another 100.

Gee, that's not much of a page count. Whether this is a biography or an "educational" book, one would think a lengthier book would serve the goal better. Perhaps this does say something about Miller's otherwise overrated talents indeed. Interesting the reviewer alludes to NYC's current residents as "one percent", since based on where they're going lately under Zohran Mamdani, and reelected the disastrous district attorney Alvin Bragg by a comfortable margin, some could make a reasonable argument something is definitely wrong with the Big Apple today, though wealth surely is the least of the problems.

So what’s left are the lessons, and the bits about Miller’s professional life. But the lessons are mostly things Miller himself has very publicly, very repeatedly not followed. “Sometimes you have to work with others to grow,” he writes, for example. “You have to put yourself back into learning, back into wonder, back into some spooky action.” And the anecdotes from the professional comics world are so bland and sanded-down as to be virtually press releases. About his decision to kill off his massively popular character Elektra, he writes:

Exit Elektra. When it came to my decision to end her life, I have to say, it just felt like the right thing to do. Bringing this storyline to a conclusion was the most dramatic thing I could do for the story: the narrative demanded an exclamation point, so I gave it one, in the most lapel-grabbing way possible.

Not mentioned here, however, is that he actually revived her the following year, perhaps because some readers took issue with this, though afterwards, she was mostly in limbo for at least another decade before being put to serious use again, in Daredevil or other comics. By which time, she was depicted as having fully reformed, more or less. And Miller, to my knowledge, was unhappy about the new use for Elektra by that time. But considering how overrated he is in the long run, that's why his complaint is decidedly not worth listening to. And his favoratism for Batman over Superman has long become a cliche among some writers:

Or this, about his decision in Dark Knight Returns to turn Superman into a fascist lapdog:

At the time, Batman suited my creative vision for a superhero much more than Superman. I grew up reading and idolizing Superman. He was my first favorite superhero. But, truth be told, I had gotten pretty sick of the guy. He was just so ridiculously powerful, and his invulnerability reached the point of limiting him as a character for me.

Obviously, “it just felt like the right thing to do” and “I had gotten pretty sick of the guy” are serious disappointments, especially coming from an author who’s gotten a good deal of profitable mileage out of the crafted public image of a straight-talking maverick. There’s precious little maverick straight-talking in Push the Wall, and we’re unlikely to get a more satisfying follow-up. Although it’s at least theoretically possible that Frank Miller could strike again.

So long as he remains as absurdly biased as he's been for goodness knows how long, he won't deliver anything satisfactory, and probably hasn't for longer than we think anyway. I do recall Ronin had a decidedly mediocre ending where the demon called "Agat" turned out to be a robot who was possibly crafted subconsciously by the main protagonist?!? Seriously, that was pretty underwhelming, and defeated whatever fantasy-based premise the miniseries was supposedly built on. And in the end, Ronin was little more than an empty shell.

But what's really disappointing is Miller's superficial view of Superman, one that completely obscures the weaknesses to Kryptonite and magical energies that were established decades ago, if we go by what's quoted from the manuscript. If Miller wanted to, he could've written up a Superman script building on stuff like that for real, and in the end, all he does is insult plenty of hard-working writers and artists who came before him by practically depicting the Man of Steel as minion for fascism. He did something like that with Wonder Woman too in the All-Star imprint title spotlighting Batman & Robin from the late 2000s that only lasted a few years. Miller's inability to acknowledge that the writers are at fault for Superman being "ridiculously powerful" is telling, and if that's how he approaches the whole matter, he's made clear he comes from a generation that didn't make any proper distinctions between reality and fiction.

Another problem with Miller is that he sounds like the kind of scribe who only cares about his own work, and doesn't give a damn what happens with others' work, or how. That's another reason why comicdom fell into such dire straits; nobody respects the past efforts of previous writers and artists with better resumes from up to the turn of the century, and now we have a whole shambles devoid of consistent continuity and characterization in the mainstream for starters. Of course, even those creators have faults, like not showing the guts to take issue with their former workplaces if they feel something wrong was done, or worse, they practically enabled it by participating in degradation of their own creations, as Kane sadly did when he drew 5 of 6 parts of the first, very repellent Green Lantern story in Action Comics Weekly from 1988, where Carol Ferris as Star Sapphire slaughtered Katma Tui, whose death to date was never fully reversed. I don't think Miller's ever complained about whether his own work on Daredevil was disrespected by successive scribes, and so, even though he may be the kind of artist/writer who only cares about his own stories, there's plenty to suggest he still doesn't put much value on what writings he has that did matter. And those writings are decidedly way too few.

As for this new "biography", I think it's worth passing on. It sounds too short, and like Miller hasn't provided enough to think about. Which has got to be another problem with modern creators in the long run.