5W Friday Panel: The Politics in Comics Roundtable (part one)

Every Friday, the Fifth World will host a virtual panel session on a topic of the week.  This week's subject: Politics in Comics.






Chris Maka

Welcome to part one of the first Fifth World roundtable!

Sean Fields

Greetings all!

Chris Maka

We’re going to be talking about politics and comics today.

When we started the Fifth World, I wanted to “avoid politics” just to avoid any of the hassle from upsetting anyone along political lines. But it quickly became apparent that we can’t separate politics from anything in the modern world, so I thought it better not to restrict ourselves or try to turn a blind eye to things that will be obvious to many readers.

So let’s start with this: since obviously comics can be political, and in some cases arguably should be, how obligated are they to represent “all positions” or all political leanings?

JL Franke

They’re entertainment and art, not journalism. Completely different rules.

Sean Fields

I don't think there is necessarily an obligation. I think it is entirely dependent on the character and the plot.

Emily Marazzo

I think it should depend on the person who is writing/drawing the comic. Just like with all other forms of art, it largely reflects the artist's observations and opinions. Comics are no different.

JL Franke

It really boils down to marketing considerations given they’re commercial enterprises. Will a given title or issue sell enough if they alienate some percentage of their potential readership with their views?

Jason Tondro

Certainly, Jerry is 95% right. Most comics are made to be art. I only qualify that because there is, in fact, such a thing as Comics Journalism. See, for example, Safe Area Gorazde, Palestine, and other work by Joe Sacco. Sacco is doing journalism and he works hard at keeping a neutral, outsider point of view. He tries not to make the story about him, but to record what he sees and what people tell him. But that’s an exception. Most comics are made to be art. And art does not have to consider both sides.



JL Franke

Good point, Jason. And now I have more comics I need to read.

Jason Tondro

Nor does art need to consider the money, if the artist chooses not to. An artist working for DC or Marvel has corporate bosses, and needs to answer to the demands of the publisher. But an artist who isn’t concerned with money doesn’t even need to go that far. They can create their own views in art.

Greg Morrow

I think that the pursuit of balance in art is probably doomed to failure. Insincere balance or token balance will be apparent to the reader to their alienation.

Sean Fields

I definitely feel that some comic books (just talking about art as opposed to comics journalism) are more able to touch on the political, like Captain America.

JL Franke

Tell that to Fox News, Sean. :grin:

Sean Fields

Ha!

Jason Tondro

Ha! But yes, I agree with Sean’s point, that some characters are more inherently political than others.

Black Panther, for crying out loud.

Sean Fields

And back to Emily's point, it is also dependent largely on the artist/creator. And if your story is trying to tell a larger message about society as a whole. Some comics are just fun.

Jason Tondro

There were some examples of this recently: an X-Men artist who put anti-Semitic phrases in the background of hisart. Got called out for it and fired.

Greg Morrow

What about comics that wouldn't be political except for the external politics the readers impose on them? Ms.Marvel leaps to mind – it's a book about a young girl immigrant superhero. It becomes political only when our society's political issues are imposed on it.


JL Franke

Good point, Greg. Some titles can’t escape the political even if they tried.

Chris Maka

How would we feel if someone, wrong though we might consider this view, honestly and sincerely felt that Steve Rogers should be written as a neo-conservative? Does the writer have a “right” to do that, to retcon the character if necessary, if he has editorial’s blessing?

Jason Tondro

There’s a lot here, so I’m going to address Chris’s point because, of course, Captain America HAS in fact been portrayed in that way. In the 1950s, his book was relaunched as CaptainAmerica, Commie-Smasher, and I think it lasted only 4 issues, maybe 3.

Greg Morrow

Millar's Ultimate Cap was an attempt to reframe Cap (incorrectly) as a modern conservative. As Jason Tondro notes, not the first time, either.

Emily Marazzo

But was it our politics that influenced the creation of such characters and the need for them in the industry?

Sean Fields

I think with any mainstream comics you can kinda get away with any angle because it ultimately returns to the status quo of the character in the end.

JL Franke

Of course, I think a good character can survive almost any (non-extreme) interpretation. Batman works completely differently by Grant Morrison than he does by Frank Miller.

Greg Morrow

From a continuity standpoint, saying that Cap is a conservative would be as abhorrent as any retcon. We've seen Cap for many years take liberal positions, had his background elaborated as one that would almost without exception be a Roosevelt Democrat, and oppose villains who exemplify modern conservative positions (in one memorable case, avillain who was in fact the President).

But as to the writer and corporate's right to do it; they have the right to do whatever they want, of course. That doesn't mean it's good art. But it also doesn't mean it's not good art.

Chris Maka

Is there a kind of market cowardice then in not writing some of these characters to their logical, liberal, extreme?

JL Franke

Why would it be cowardice?  Does the story depend on that viewpoint?

Jason Tondro

Back in 2009, Matthew Pustz, who is a cultural historian, did an analysis of politics in comics and he titled it, “Michael Moore in Tights.” And what he was investigating was the possibility or potential of a progressive superhero. And what he found, and Matthew is very much an evidence-based historian, is that as Sean is getting at — these characters are inherently status quo. As the politics of our country sway one way, so the characters sway. And when politics swings back across the pendulum, they drag the characters with them. These characters — especially the ones owned by the big publishers — mirror our culture.

Emily Marazzo

That's a really good point. If characters can handle being killed off every other issue and still survive to live another day, why not interpret them to have changing political views? At the very least, it makes them more realistic in my opinion.

Greg Morrow

There's a book – I of course do not remember title or author – which explored how Superman and Batman were rapidly "tamed" by the publisher from more radical beginnings to much tamer upholders of the status quo: allied with the police (Batman especially – as we saw in Batman '66 – as essentially an arm of the PD). Superman went from a strike-buster buster to Joe System.

Sean Fields

Yeah, think Grant Morrison mentioned that in his new 52 "re-imagining". Hence the boots and t-shirt.


Jason Tondro

Yes, that’s very true. While it’s probably not the book you’re thinking of, Greg, the Superman side of that case is presented in Ian Gordon’s Superman: the Persistence of an American Icon.

He starts off an FDR Democrat, but DC pressures his creators to strip all the politics out, and pretty soon he’s just fighting bank robbers and mad scientists.

Greg Morrow

But saying that superheroes uphold the status quo is missing the modern part of the story – the status quo for decades was the post-war liberal consensus. The modern Overton Window shift of the last two decades means that superheroes can adhere to the current status quo, or they can adhere to the same status quo they've been following, with radically different results.

Jason Tondro

Right, that’s interesting. I see your point. The status quo has changed so much since the invention of conservative media. So which version of culture does the superhero adhere to?

Greg Morrow

I have a lot of cognitive dissonance about the death of the post-war liberal consensus – for roughly the entirety of this century, I have been uncomfortably aware that I simply do not understand half of this country.

Jason Tondro

Boy, do I hear you, Greg. That’s why I wrote my first column here, the response to the Pajama Media articleabout Captain Marvel. I was trying to get through to my mum, who is a diehard Trump supporter. Total failure, by the way. She didn’t even read it.

Sean Fields

I always felt that from when I can remember starting reading comics that the heart of Cap is America as the guy fighting for what we need it to be with all the judgment that comes with the USA's reality vs Superman, which is the idealized America as many think it is in their brains/hearts.

Greg Morrow

Sean, I agree with you. Both Cap and Superman are about idealism, and specifically American idealism. But Cap does more to confront where we diverge, while Superman is more about encouraging us to aspire to that ideal.

Jason Tondro

For me, the quintessential Captain America scene is him standing between two different rioting mobs, holding them apart and trying to help them see they have more in common with each other than they do differences.

Emily, you were bringing up realism. Is it important that a character have political views to be realistic? Can we plausibly create or tell a story with a character in 2017 who doesn’t think about politics? I say this because, despite Chris’s original idea that we shouldn’t talk about politics here, that’s the first thing many of us did.

Emily Marazzo

Absolutely! I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't think about politics 100 percent of the time. Family, work, and other things take up some of that space, and our entertainment should reflect those aspects of our lives just as much as politics.

But that's the exact reason why we shouldn't shun politics in comics.

Should we include politics in all age/children's comics, though?

Greg Morrow

Politics is a part of life – especially now, when we are so polarized.

JL Franke

Agreed with Emily. I don't think we had a lot of political content early because we are all inherently political animals.  I think we write about what we respond strongly to, and in many cases, political content of today evokes strong reactions.

Greg Morrow

Childhood is the best time to indoctrinate. "Indoctrinate" is a strong word, but honestly, instilling political principles is part of instilling moral principles.

Jason Tondro

I guess I become very skeptical of readers who insist comics should “stick with entertainment,” or however they choose to phrase it. This idea that comics were ever somehow not a way to talk about politics, and the only responsible thing for Marvel and DC to do is never discuss anything that could be seen as political. When in fact comics have always been political. Comics are culture. And we’re in the Culture Wars. So comics are a battlefield in that war.

Sean Fields

This.

Greg Morrow

The seeds of my current politics were definitely sewn during my childhood, when I was exposed to environmentalism, feminism and the like (including liberal Catholicism, which used to exist, and which emphasized pastoral care for the needy).

"Stick with entertainment" is a deflection, and a clumsy one.

Jason Tondro

Right, right. Pope Francis is trying to bring that back, isn’t he? Forgive my ignorant tone.

Greg Morrow

Pope Francis has said a lot of really, really positive Catholic things as well as some run-of-the-mill stupid Catholic things. But we digress.

JL Franke

That statement makes me nervous, Greg.  I would not be surprised to find out that part of why we've entered such an age of extremism in this country is that we've conflated politics with morality.  When it's working best, politics sidesteps the question of morality.

Jason Tondro

Oh I disagree. I find it very hard to talk about politics without talking about morality.

Emily Marazzo

I agree with Jason, politics are driven by morals.

Greg Morrow

I think I disagree, Jerry – you can't approach taxation or health care without thinking about who they're going to affect and how, and that invites moral judgment.

Sean Fields

I'm trying to think of a non-morality based political issues.

Greg Morrow

The politics of HIV research was driven by moral judgments against the ******s and drug users who had it.

Sean Fields

I'm sure one exists I'm just drawing a blank.

JL Franke

My issue is not with including moral judgment in politics, it's declaring politics = morality.  I'm going to mangle the quote, but there was a wonderful line on The West Wing about how there were few days in the White House involving an absolute wrong and an absolute right, and those usually involved a body count.

Greg Morrow

You can make any political issue moral – imagine a tree-planting project; now condemn it as stupid green propaganda.

Jason Tondro

I think I see where you’re coming from, Jerry.

Greg Morrow

Morality isn't binary. I mean, I'm fond of the Elliot S Maggin Superman line, that good and evil exist in the universe and the difference is not hard to see – but all of us, especially as we mature, appreciate that everything is gray.

But in politics as in life, we can try to be more like Superman or we can try to be more like Darkseid.

(Almost wrote Thanos!)


Jason Tondro

Certainly, politics is almost by definition the art of compromise and deal making. And that’s not something we’re often comfortable with when it comes to our morality. Morals and ethics guide our politics, but in the end politics is a lot messier. We can’t survive as Rorshach, “Never Compromise, not even in the face of Armageddon.”


Greg Morrow

"Never make the perfect the enemy of the good."

Honor LaBerge

I'm a little behind, but back to Emily's question earlier, I think introducing even real or imagined politics in YA or All-Age comics is pretty standard at this point. It creates great plot dynamic and normally flows through to the resolution, and in the end most of the time the characters come to find out they weren't that different at all, just thinking in a different way. (Also excuse me for not chiming in sooner, I had to wait 30 minutes for a sticker for my car. Y'all have made some pretty great points so far.)

Jason Tondro

Right. Yes.

I’m glad you brought us back to that, Honor. Because I have not read nearly enough YA comics. Are there some stand out examples of politics in YA or all ages books?

Sean Fields

I'm trying to think, was there ever a time I didn't view comics/media through a political or at least a societal reflective lens. I'm not sure there was, or at least not after the age of ten.

Greg Morrow

When I was a young comics reader, Hawkman and Green Arrow sniped at each other in the pages of JLA over political issues.



Honor LaBerge

I think it's a common trope you see in most stories anywhere to honest. You become presented with an issue and objecting sides become present. Several different characters have conflicting ways how to handle it and it proceeds from there.

Jason Tondro

Life with Archie did a real number with this, over the last few years before Archie’s “death” and the book was relaunched. With, for example, the introduction of gay characters, including a gay marriage, a debate at Riverdale between candidate Obama and Sarah Palin, and a shooting at a political rally.

JL Franke

I think Hawkman/GA is a good example of why trying to achieve balance usually doesn't work very well.  Hawkman always came off as a jerk, for example.  It's difficult to effectively channel the opposing side with any empathy if you feel strongly the other way.

Sean Fields

Good point, Jerry.

Greg Morrow

Is there a line between "politics are present" and actually advocating a particular position?

The people writing JLA were slightly one-sided in that era....

Sean Fields

I think there is a definite difference between advocating vs just presenting.

Jason Tondro

I agree, Jerry. And we can see both sides of that when, for example, Chuck Dixon writes Green Lantern/Green Arrow and satirizes all the liberal issues that Denny O’Neil wrote about in the 70s.

Honor LaBerge

I think there is a line between the two.

Greg Morrow

The "just entertainment" people would then proceed to argue that comics shouldn't advocate so much, they should stick more to just presenting.

Emily Marazzo

Then it's terrible entertainment

Greg Morrow

There's a point there, which is that advocating something you don't feel strongly or sincerely about is bad art.

But neutering what you do feel strongly or sincerely about in order to avoid "advocating" is also bad art.

Jason Tondro

Prompted by you all, I have been trying to figure the first time I became aware of politics in my comics. And I was a Marvel Zombie as a kid. So I think it was in Captain America, when he was dating Bernie, his Jewish girlfriend.

Sean Fields

How did that make you aware, Jason?

Jason Tondro

It was one of those “two sides rioting” stories, and I think one side was just anti-Semitic. I’m not sure if everyone would call that “politics,” but it feels that way to me now.


From the story arc in Captain America #275-#279 -- Curious Chris

Sean Fields

Ahh, okay.

Chris Maka

It felt that way to me then. I think marginalization of minority demographics by the majority is always political, and always wrong and immoral.

JL Franke

I think I remember that story.

Jason Tondro

Mike Zeck, I think...

Greg Morrow

The few writers I could really say I know anything about, they want to say something, but they also really want to cash that check.

Jason Tondro

But I digress.

JL Franke

I believe you're right.  Roger Stern writing, IIRC.

Sean Fields

Yeah that was kinda what I was referring to with politics or a societal view always being present for me.

Jason Tondro

Y’know, we’re ignoring the long tradition of comics which are intended PRIMARILY for politics: political cartoons and strips like Doonesbury.



Greg Morrow

It's been a century since political cartoons were really nationally relevant, I think.

Sean Fields

I think it has always been political for you if the politics of the time affects you strongly/negatively vs nothing changes for you much with any change in status quo. I think this time recently has just been a lot of shift so it comes up more or is more noticed.

I can't remember when I last read Doonesbury.

Greg Morrow

It's Sunday-only now (weekday reruns)

Jason Tondro

I hate to be the person to point this out, but your typical superhero comic sells 30,000 copies a month in a nation of 350 million. We have no ground to stand on, to call anything irrelevant. 1 in 10,000 people read Spider-Man.

Greg Morrow

How many people saw Captain America: Civil War?



Chris Maka

Let’s say that someone who listens to Steve Brannon wanted to write any kind of comic book to support those views but without being preachy. Possible? And what would that look like?

Sean Fields

Anything is possible but would it be any good. From what I know about Bannon's politics it seems pretty hard to make a "good story" from that, that is supportive of his stance.

Greg Morrow

I think that conservative writers have been writing comics here and there all along -- Chuck Dixon on Robin comes to mind.

Jason Tondro

Well, now that’s important, Captain America: Civil War, but it’s not comics.

Sean Fields

I saw it.

Greg Morrow

Is it really distinguishable, though? The reason superhero movies are finally working is because they're finally reflecting the comics

Honor LaBerge

I saw it too.

Jason Tondro

Civil War the movie had perilously little to do with the comics. It boiled pretty quickly down to “Your best friend killed my mom.” It shirked the politics, and that’s why people liked it.

Greg Morrow

That is more reductive than I'm willing to accept. The first half of the movie is about the Accords, and that's purely political.

JL Franke

The only way I can get my mind around a reasonable depiction of Bannon's politics is to buy into and propagate the sanitized version that he periodically trots out about economic nationalism.

Chris Maka

I agree. I think it’s interesting that certain parties are mainstreaming political ideologies that in heroic fiction you could not effectively write any way other than as villainous. But in real life many people see these views as “good”. It would be interesting and challenging to try to write that sympathetically in a heroic fiction context.

Greg Morrow

In particular, Captain America: Civil War is about characters lining up and taking a position on a political topic.

JL Franke

I have to agree with Jason.  It veers away from the political pretty quickly.  By the time they fight, it's no longer about the abstract topic but instead about whether or not they believe Bucky was framed.

Greg Morrow

Miller's Holy Terror hardly qualifies because of the "non-preachy" requirement.


Gross.

Sean Fields

Actually you are right, Jerry. You can do a Bannon political comic book like a "real American" version of Black Panther but the issue would be T’Challa also helps out those outside of Wakanda which is key to his moral dilemma and his people. Don't think that would work with a Bannon "hero."

Chris Maka

Great point, Sean.

Greg Morrow

Fine, then Winter Soldier – overt conflict between order and freedom. As our own Marc Singer put it (paraphrasing) – superhero stories allow the concretization of metaphor into external conflict like no other genre in history.



Sean Fields

Yeah but the order in Winter Soldier is based in Hydra and I don't care what gymnastics they want to pull in the MCU, Hydra = Nazis. Easy to pick a side.

JL Franke

True.  Although just to mix the two threads together, the Captain America in Civil War is a type of Bannon hero if you squint enough.

Sean Fields

How so, Jerry?

Greg Morrow

That may be the writers putting a thumb on the scale – but there is a moral and political conflict that is reified in Hydra v. Cap.

Emily Marazzo

I'm surprised no one has brought up V for Vendetta

Sean Fields

Man, and I had some stuff to say about associating order with oppression but okay, Greg. :wink:

Totally forgot about V.



JL Franke

The movie Cap (a) is fighting to avoid government regulation of superheroes because of the detrimental effect it will have on society – heroes need the freedom to do their thing, and (b) recognizes the dangers that lurk out there because the bad guys don't have their hands tied behind their backs.  It's not the best of analogies, but I can see someone spirited enough championing it.

Sean Fields

Is there any fiction even outside of comics-based stuff that has order being the end goal without wildly taking away freedoms and putting corrupt/evil/bigoted men in power?

JL Franke

Squadron Supreme was an interesting exercise there.



Sean Fields

(Was going to make a comment about Cap being a gun freedoms advocate but no idea how to phrase it right.)

JL Franke

There were certainly freedoms in jeopardy, but the point of Squadron Supreme was that good, just people make for tyrants just as easily as the corrupt and evil.

Sean Fields

Squadron Supreme and CrimeSyndicate stories are always interesting takes on order and power, and Crime Syndicate definitely went to the other side with it.



Honor LaBerge

Cap tries to embody America, I don't think they'd allow him to be anything even slightly against anything in the Constitution.

JL Franke

Hopping back to V, one of the things I found intriguing about the series was that almost no one was clean, except maybe Evie and the detective whose name escapes me.  V was just as much a monster as the regime he was fighting.

Sean Fields

I think Cap is definitely all for Constitutional rights, but he’s also the person who would call out our BS. Or he was when I was reading him ages ago.

Maybe that's the point of it all. We can slip either way when we let the pursuit of power affect our morals and/or politics.

JL Franke

I look at it slightly differently, in that both V and Squadron Supreme show the dangers of imposing morality on others.

Sean Fields

Good point.

Emily Marazzo

Extremes on either side tend to be in the wrong.

Back to the whole balance thing, I think it's hard to portray because it's hard to achieve. V for Vendetta kind of just took everyone's morals and upped them to 1000, even going after the church, to show that no one was really pure or good or however you choose to phrase it.

Sean Fields

I think Jerry asked a good question in the planning for this discussion – "whether folks read stories that have a different political slant than their own leanings, and if so, how they respond to that."

Honor LaBerge

Here's a question for ya'll, How do you think being political in comics is changing new readership? I know many people Emily and I's age try to steer clear of political topics or reading that contain tones we don't necessarily agree with.

Let's get to Seans question first.

Sean Fields

I think those questions actually overlap, Honor

JL Franke

I think you just addressed that question at least partially, Honor.  :-)

Honor LaBerge

Hahaha I believe it does.

JL Franke

I think for myself, I can divide pieces on views in opposition of my own into two groups: those that make me think (at least for a moment) and those I feel come off as naive or overly simplistic.  I love the one but bristle at the other.

Sean Fields

I know I read mostly things entertainment-wise that bolster my own political leanings, especially recently. I also think as a person who has been around the same characters for awhile, I have what the character is "supposed to be" locked in my head and sometimes shut down when they aren't, like Cap in that recent Secret Empire story.

Chris Maka

For me it's a question of exploration of themes or values versus preaching. Preaching I cannot stand.

Sean Fields

I think if it is a new or unfamiliar character I'm definitely more open to anything, except outright bigotry.

Chris Maka

Agreed, Sean

Honor LaBerge

I can agree with that, when a character all of a sudden takes up a cause and starts to preach a topic, I lose most interest.

Emily Marazzo

Even when it aligns with my ideals, I'm with Chris. It tends to alienate people rather than build a constructive debate on the topic

JL Franke

Agree with all.  At the very least, it runs afoul of the rule, "Show, don't tell."

So are there any political topics too hot to touch in comics?

Honor LaBerge

I honestly don't believe there isn't a topic comics or entertainment can't touch.

Sean Fields

I think there is pretty much nothing untouchable politics-wise IF you don't care about alienating someone. If you’re making something for just people who agree with you then the opportunity exists for you to do it somehow.

Emily Marazzo

Would there be a good example of creating an open discussion on a political issue in comics rather than just alienating people? Or would that just circle back to the whole "balance" thing?

JL Franke

I'm honestly not sure it's possible in today's political climate to openly discuss politics without alienating people.

Honor LaBerge

Back to the previous question, I think if Alan Moore can actively write rape scenes in most of his stories there isn't a topic people can't touch as long as, like Sean says, you don't care about alienating someone.

Sean Fields

I think it's harder but there should still be ways to discuss certain issues. The problem is that most things involve actual living people and the fates/lives of those folks so it makes it harder.

Emily Marazzo

That's a good point, Sean

Sean Fields

Entertainment and fun entertainment at that should be able to present an issue in a way to talk about it with maybe disagreement in the end but both sides are heard. I think Star Trek was really good at that.

JL Franke

I resonate well with that second sentence especially, Sean.  My view is that 90% of political debate (at least when not simplified) is about the balance of rights and freedoms between different populations.

Honor LaBerge

I agree with that comparison, Sean.

Sean Fields

Yup. I also think it's easier to talk about certain things in groups where you feel comfortable. Geek culture is both great for that and absolutely horrible at the same time.

Chris Maka

This.

JL Franke

Uh oh, do I hear the words gamergate echoing through the subtext?

Honor LaBerge

Sssshhhhhhh

Sean Fields

On one hand, it should be all inclusive and welcoming to people with open minds because if you can wrap your head around aliens and people fighting in capes for good you should be a positive human.

But on the other hand, claiming a culture "as just for me and people like me" pushes out other folks.

Not to say that some ***holes shouldnt be excluded...

JL Franke

I think one issue is that it doesn't take much to turn "fighting for good" into "fighting against evil", which are not necessarily the same thing.

Sean Fields

True.

Chris Maka

This might be a good stopping point for Part 1. See everyone for Part 2 Friday afternoon!
5W Friday Panel: The Politics in Comics Roundtable (part one) 5W Friday Panel: The Politics in Comics Roundtable (part one) Reviewed by Chris Maka on Friday, November 03, 2017 Rating: 5
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