Warren Ellis mixes politics and comic books to fail at both….

A long list of “influencers in [sic] current pop culture” would have a bearing on my point only if I shared the opinion that mass influence, the popular culture, and “the current” are good preoccupations for the most thoughtful human beings on the Right. But this is the very point on which I’ve tried to correct you once already, and not because you’re very important, but because your opinion becomes poisonous if it infects the attention of those who are capable of higher things than chasing influence over popular culture.

Yeah, here’s a subtle little reminder to all humans aged 18-34 reading this: The reason 99.9% of you despise all Republicans and conservatives in general is that they are very often going to spout incredibly pompous, detached polemics against the novels, magazines, music, movies, and web videos you choose to spend your time and money on (and therefore influence your thoughts and actions) as quoted above.

You heard the man, conservatives! We’ve lost but that’s okay because we’re just better than them with their “cool” and “hypocrisy” and their “scare quotes” around their “words.” We should be behind the Mighty Mindwall rather than engage with the squishy-minded rabble on a physical or visceral level. Hey, how ’bout we all take up speaking Latin?

Let’s get inward!
Wooooo-HOOOOO!

Prove I’m wrong with the long list of Republicans and political conservative influencers in our current pop culture. Proof will be when you provide five names of avowed and vocal Republican and/or politically conservative working and living artists in each of the following categories: …

Refusal to answer this list with some variation of the pompous “Those lists are not the real influencers of our culture” cop out, will result in an embarrassing and humiliating forfeit to this challenge.

Provide 5 names for each of the lists and I’ll forget that for all your big talk of intellect on our side, you lost your cool and hypocritically resorted to ad hominem attacks against me.

ScottMcC on July 24, 2007 at 1:18 AM

I’ll get the “embarrassing and humiliating forfeit” of your tedious homework assignment out of the way first, ScottMcC. A long list of “influencers in [sic] current pop culture” would have a bearing on my point only if I shared the opinion that mass influence, the popular culture, and “the current” are good preoccupations for the most thoughtful human beings on the Right. But this is the very point on which I’ve tried to correct you once already, and not because you’re very important, but because your opinion becomes poisonous if it infects the attention of those who are capable of higher things than chasing influence over popular culture.

As for ad hominem attacks on you, you’re right that they’re beside the point. I already know and haven’t forgotten; they don’t serve by refuting your opinion, but serve by eroding vulgar acquiescence in your opinion, stemming from vulgar admiration for you. My “cool” doesn’t matter, so I’ll pass over it to my “hypocrisy,” which, come to think of it, doesn’t matter either, at least in the way you somehow imagine. You seemed to be just the sort of contemporary man who would confidently raise a claim of hypocrisy as if it would obviously be a bad thing. I’ll be authentic for a moment and openly invite you to consider the question of the worth of hypocrisy. Here’s a hint: It’s usually best considered inwardly instead of outwardly. Also, it might bear some relation to art, which you seem to love more than to understand. Even the man who said the artists lie too much implied thereby that he couldn’t reasonably expect them to stop lying altogether.

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Strange coincidence eh?

ScottMcC, you don’t know or even suspect the first thing about the ambitions of the most thoughtful people on the Right. To judge from the easy, common opinions you’ve repeated here, they transcend your remotest imaginings, you noisy parakeet.

Kralizec on July 23, 2007 at 10:08 PM

Prove I’m wrong with the long list of Republicans and political conservative influencers in our current pop culture. Proof will be when you provide five names of avowed and vocal Republican and/or politically conservative working and living artists in each of the following categories:

-CURRENT WRITERS OF NETWORK TELEVISION FILMED OR VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT-
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

-CURRENT PERFORMERS OF SCRIPTED CABLE TELEVISION FILMED OR VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT-
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

-CINEMATIC ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCERS CURRENTLY UNDER CONTRACT WITH ONE OF THE TOP FIVE MAJOR MOVIE STUDIOS-
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

-TOURING COMEDIANS CAPABLE OF HEADLINING 1,000+ SEAT THEATERS-
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

-FICTION NOVELISTS WITH WORKS IN THE NYT BEST SELLERS LIST-
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

-POP/ROCK MUSIC ARTISTS CURRENTLY CHARTING WITH PLATINUM OR BETTER SALES ACCORDING TO BILLBOARD MAGAZINE-
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

-VIDEO GAME DESIGNERS (ANY PLATFORM) WITH SALES OF 1+ MILLION UNITS OR CURRENTLY CHARTING AS PER NPD RETAIL-
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Refusal to answer this list with some variation of the pompous “Those lists are not the real influencers of our culture” cop out, will result in an embarrassing and humiliating forfeit to this challenge.

Provide 5 names for each of the lists and I’ll forget that for all your big talk of intellect on our side, you lost your cool and hypocritically resorted to ad hominem attacks against me.

As long as Republicans discourage study of the arts, shun any career path/tangible product that doesn’t immediately make them money, and refuse to engage in pop culture debates other than whining when the entrenched liberal artists kick them in the scrotum (again), this shouldn’t be surprising.

It’s really hypocritical when Republicans and conservatives complain about how Those Darn Liberals(tm) are runining the world with their filthy media oferings but those same Republicans and conservatives are the ones who never want to part with their blood or treasure over esoteric things like funding TV shows, cartoons, games, and other influential media.

ScottMcC on July 23, 2007 at 12:08 PM

ScottMcC, you don’t know or even suspect the first thing about the ambitions of the most thoughtful people on the Right. To judge from the easy, common opinions you’ve repeated here, they transcend your remotest imaginings, you noisy parakeet.

I prefer the way our own lefties deal with this issue: through a narcissistic delusional martyrdom complex.

Not to nitpick, but Mark Millar is also a British funny book writer. Apparently the editorial board at DC hired their lefties across the pond to be our lefties.

Lefty outsourcing! I’m outrageously outraged!

Since I’m so obviously wrong and a big meanie, how would YOU motivate the current generation of poetry girl and gamer boy teens to go Republican and stick with novel writing and movie making as their top career choices?

Simple, make it profitable. As you pointed out, Republicans/conservatives are financially motivated. You want Republicans/conservatives to back the arts, offer them a fat and easy to use tax write-off for funding artistic projects and they will line up around the block.

Republicans/conservatives don’t object to the arts, they hate funding art that offends them. They want a say in what is considered good acceptable art. Let them fund the art they choose and give them incentive to do so and they will.

If this is really and truly your aim, then boy are you going about it the wrong way. If you want conservative/republicans to support the arts you need to think about what motivates them. Very few people are motivated by being insulted.

doriangrey on July 23, 2007 at 3:06 PM

Principled Republicans do not espouse the “Those Darn Liberals(tm) with their coddling kids by abolishing grades in schools and telling them everyone is equal are destroying our society! What we need is to be honest, toughen up, and learn the reality that there are winners and losers in the world! No whiners! I hate all this commie socialist ‘greater good’ collectivist crap! You gotta fight for it! RAH RAH RAH!” rugged individualist philosophy and then get huffy when a fellow Republican endorses conflict with the status quo as a means to resolve an issue.

Since I’m so obviously wrong and a big meanie, how would YOU motivate the current generation of poetry girl and gamer boy teens to go Republican and stick with novel writing and movie making as their top career choices?

I read the first Walking Dead collection but don’t remember it all that well. Maybe I’ll see if the library has a few more volumes of it.

That said, I’ve noticed a lot of lefty praise for the book, so I suspect it can’t have the kind of conservative bent that would really get me enthusiastic. Seems to me that, at least in the comic world, the line between liberal and libertarian is much thinner than the line between libertarian and conservative.

Kensington on July 23, 2007 at 3:15 PM

Like i said, the politics aren’t “in your face”, but i’d be hard pressed to find the writers views on guns (at least as expressed in the comic) as anything less then right of center.

Oh $hit, I think I need a beer now…Not sure if that was genuinely a complement or not, I am going to pretend that it was and say thank you.
doriangrey on July 23, 2007 at 4:36 PM

It was. Nice guitar work.

Oh $hit, I think I need a beer now…Not sure if that was genuinely a complement or not, I am going to pretend that it was and say thank you.

And that’s all that counts. I’m a strummer and my fingers simply cannot dance up the fretboard.

doriangrey on July 23, 2007 at 1:40 PM

If I don’t forgive, it’s only because you’re a vastly superior guitarist.

Dang it.

And too cowardly to confront the true tyrants of our time, for fear of losing their head.

*~@):~{>

Typical craven clucking to comfort their own apoplexy.

I’ve read comics since college, on and off, and I always thought the far-left tendencies of comic writers were curious, since most of their classic characters were created during the patriotic Greatest Generation and the fundamentally conservative 50s, by people who modern liberals would have considered reactionaries. Superman is basically wearing an American flag, after all, even if modern comics writers have managed to dispense with his “truth, justice, and the American Way” ethos, or turned it into a post-modern joke. The vigilante justice that most comics superheroes pursue doesn’t square very well with liberal theories on crime and punishment. You don’t see Batman cutting his enemies a break because they come from troubled childhoods or impoverished neighborhoods. The Bush-asassination fantasy from Ellis is especially inconsistent with the idea he tried to push in his other big superhero comic, “The Authority”, in which a band of superheroes decided to abandon the traditional superhero respect for civilian governments and basically takes over the planet for its own good, ruthlessly wiping out anyone who gets in their way. Their first adventure even involves a bit of regime change against the head of a terrorist state, and it’s presented as a great moral victory. I guess overthrowing tyrants is one of those things that’s only evil when conservatives do it…

They people who write comics are neither liberal nor libertarian, their lunatics…

You should give “The Walking Dead” by Robert Kirkman. Not only is it very well written (and about Zombies, can’t go wrong with zombies), it definitely has a libertarian/conservative bent. Not too in your face, but it’s there.

I read the first Walking Dead collection but don’t remember it all that well. Maybe I’ll see if the library has a few more volumes of it.

That said, I’ve noticed a lot of lefty praise for the book, so I suspect it can’t have the kind of conservative bent that would really get me enthusiastic. Seems to me that, at least in the comic world, the line between liberal and libertarian is much thinner than the line between libertarian and conservative.

If this is really and truly your aim, then boy are you going about it the wrong way. If you want conservative/republicans to support the arts you need to think about what motivates them. Very few people are motivated by being insulted.

The world of comic books is an odd one indeed, and, although I know it’s historically had a left-wing tilt, the particularly Moonbat tilt of the last several years finally pushed me away entirely. Every now and then you’ll find a writer or artist with a remotely sensible head on their shoulders, but for every Colleen Doran, there are ten raving leftist morons like Ellis or Ed Brubaker or Alex Ross.

Even seemingly down to earth guys like Brian Michael Bendis disappoint (back during the 2004 election season, Bendis pimped agressively on his message board for John Kerry, citing Fahrenheit 9/11 as evidence of Bush’s incompetence.) Bendis’s board also hosts a variety of Truthers and assassination enthusiasts.

But even beyond the overt politics, comics nowadays are routinely steeped in cynicism and anti-Americanism. It’s no wonder the audience tends to skew Moonbat. The only question is whether comics are simply preaching to the choir or, in fact, creating converts. My guess would be the latter, and it’s a shame.

Kensington on July 23, 2007 at 11:27 AM

You should give “The Walking Dead” by Robert Kirkman. Not only is it very well written (and about Zombies, can’t go wrong with zombies), it definitely has a libertarian/conservative bent. Not too in your face, but it’s there.