Alt-right publisher founds ComicsGate comic imprint

[Melz2]

@tachin1

And yet their legitimacy rests on their purported earnestness of their beliefs.

To the people that they target, they are a legitimate existential threat.

[richard77]

And then their failure will be a further proof of the liberal conspiracy

[MikeR]

The Suffragettes would have crushed the Gamergaters in minutes.

And that’s why we need a time machine.

[mindfu]

@beschizza

It’s Beale’s commercial grab at the word, though, that really threatens to upset the apple cart.

As a smaller note than the rest of the issues raised here, it’s so funny to me how all that alleged “Free market” dogmatism goes out the window when its vocal adherents feel it hit something they care about.

[Ceran_Swicegood]

VD is pretty well known to be a whole-cloth neo-nazi, racist, misogynist, anti-semite, the whole proverbial nine yards. Is he an asshole in public for the attention? You betcha.

[snigs]

I remember this from back in the day. https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?mingr=0&TID=240021
They were kind of serious, it wasn’t really a parody.

[MalevolentPixy]

@asdasdetc

I would say that even some books can be pretty close to apolitical.

There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. Politics-free. Art.

You are thinking of stories that reflect a default. A default that you are used to, and familiar with. That does not mean that they have no political message. Status-quo is still a political message.

Just because you are comfortable with it, just because you can’t see a “message”, because it is the same one that you’ve seeped in since before you were born, does not make it apolitical.

All politics is identity politics, and all art is political. There is no such thing as a neutral message. This is not really a difficult concept.

[tsath]

His political instincts were always sound

[tsath]

Not unlike megachurch preachers

[asdasdetc]

Thanks for the reply.

@tachin1

I think I understand what you mean to say, but I think you may be thinking of “political” in a very narrow sense as consciously proposing a viewpoint.

If it’s commercial, it can’t be apolitical, whoever puts out a book intends to make a profit from it and merely catering to the tastes of the public and not challenging their views means reinforcing them. If you are comfortable with whatever a story is about it’s because you like the story. The politics of the world in the book don’t seem like a political message if it’s what you already believe to be true about the world.

Interesting argument, but I don’t agree. Defining “political” that way is too expansive. If you follow that line of reasoning to the end there are no other actions than political actions. The term becomes meaningless.

Using a narrow definition of politics as in what I think you meant to say is perfectly fine, but it only goes so far as to point out specific political agendas, it ignores that there are many other political agendas, like maintaining the status quo, that are also pushed on us all the time. Just because it’s not always a conscious effort does not make it less a real push or any less political.

That way lies madness.

Seeking artists’ unconscious political agendas reminds me of the secret police in the Soviet bloc countries trying to analyze suspected dissident poetry for just a whiff of counter revolutionary allusions. Analyzing motivations so evanescent that there is no way to ascertain any truth.

[Erik_Denning]

Some dumbass racists want to make a comic book. Why is that a big deal? Are people worried they won’t get distribution?

I like it when the cockroaches step into the light.

[asdasdetc]

@MalevolentPixy

There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. Politics-free. Art.

Opinion. You perceive all art as political.

@MalevolentPixy

All politics is identity politics

Again, opinion. Example counterpoint: Marx.

@MalevolentPixy

This is not really a difficult concept.

It really is. You seem to believe in it, but it is impossible to evaluate the truth in your statements. Just saying it emphatically doesn’t make it true. I think all politics =/= identity politics.

[Melz2]

Art and all creative endeavors don’t exist in a vacuum, completely separated from the rest of the human experience.

[Aelfscine]

But yeah, comics have never been political

[Brainspore]

@Erik_Denning

I like it when the cockroaches step into the light.

I liked it when being a Nazi carried such a social stigma that people were afraid to spread Nazi ideology.

[Aelfscine]

You’re mistaking your own worldview as being ‘neutral,’ and thus thinking that art that caters to/follows that worldview is ‘apolitical.’

[tachin1]

@asdasdetc

If you follow that line of reasoning to the end there are no other actions than political actions.

Yes!

@asdasdetc

The term becomes meaningless

If all actions are political then the term does not become meaningless, we merely gain an understanding that our actions and beliefs affect others.

@asdasdetc

That way lies madness.

The most merciful thing in the world… is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
-H. P. Lovecraft

@asdasdetc

Seeking artists’ unconscious political agendas reminds me of the secret police in the Soviet bloc countries trying to analyze suspected dissident poetry for just a whiff of counter revolutionary allusions. Analyzing motivations so evanescent that there is no way to ascertain any truth.

Now this is interesting:
Politics in art is not about the hidden agendas, that’s another conversation all together though the idea of the death of the author would come in handy here, because we don’t necessarily have to take the authors intent to understand the effect of the work.
That’s probably the key difference in our opinion right now. Yes, some authors do indeed use their work to promote an idea, here we agree. But I know that some authors, without intending to, promote ideas and values in their works that have an effect on the real world.
I would argue that the best artists are at least aware of this even when they do not themselves attempt to purposefully pull an Aesop, they at least understand that aesthetics give rise to meaning for creatures that look for meaning in everything they do.

But the interesting bit is in this image you put forth, why do totalitarian regimes try to control art? and how instrumental is it to their hold on power?
I would argue that it’s actually very effective, but that’s getting us way off topic now.

[jandrese]

In the past this community has not been so good at standing up and supporting their creators. The Atlas Shrugged movie was a box office disaster for example.

[jandrese]

Aren’t you really saying: there is no such thing as apolitical art because I can read politics into anything?

[Perrin_Rynning]

It’s the perfect self-correcting solution to the problem. Issues like this can only spring from hatred, so redirecting that hatred at another group that is not hating “correctly, the way we are” focuses their energies on each other and leaves them less opportunity to advance either agenda.