Category Archives: controversy

contributors, controversy, cultural, interviews, online

UPDATES: Baron Leaves Alt-Right “Based Stick Man” Comic, Alt★Hero Looms

VOX DAYIn a recent e-mail to Sacred and Sequential founder A. David Lewis, Eisner Award-winning comics creator Mike Baron wrote the following:

I am no longer involved with this project.

Baron was writing in reference to the Based Stick Man Graphic Novel, whose Facebook site, at the time of this writing, still features his name prominently as its writer and has made no further announcement. Sacred and Sequential spoke with Baron in August for his views on the project at that time.

Offering no additional explanation, Baron steps away from this alt-right project both as its Indiegogo fundraising page has disappeared and as provocateur Vox Day’s Alt★Hero series (discussed previously by guest columnist Sean Kleefeld) has apparently raised over ten times its campaign goal on the new “free speech” crowdfunding platform FreeStartr. Whether the BSM project could resurface on FreeStartr is unknown at this time.

As of last month, comics writer Chuck Dixon remains attached to the Alt★Hero volumes. Vox Day (aka Theodore Robert Beale) continues to tweet publicly about the project:

https://twitter.com/voxday/status/914164822119473152

https://twitter.com/voxday/status/914112394749730818

 

controversy, cultural, interviews, podcast

Writer Mike Baron on Based Stick Man, the Alt-Right, and Free Speech – 001 Sacred & Sequential Audio

Promotional cover art to Based Stick Man
Promotional cover art to Based Stick Man

A. David Lewis speaks with Mike Baron in August 2017 about the upcoming Based Stick Man series, the politics of the series, and Baron’s own views on free speech and violence.

“Sometimes our heroes aren’t the people we’d most like them to be. You’ve got to take who you can get.”

academic, contributors, controversy, interviews, online

Returning to the Religious Studies Project’s Comics Warning

A year or two ago, S&S Founding Members David McConeghy and A. David Lewis sat down to discuss the latter’s new book, American Comics, Literary Theory, and Religion: The Superhero Afterlife for The Religious Studies Project. Since that time, The Superhero Afterlife went on to be nominated for an Eisner Award, and McConeghy has switched American coasts, moving from West to East.

However, at around the same time, RSP’s own David G. Robertson penned this incisive response to the subject of their conversation, which, in light of 2017 politics and recent criticism of mainstream superhero storylines, now feels remarkably prescient.

Therefore it is vitally important for a non-essentialist and non-elitist study of religion that we consider comics in their cultural and historical context. Without that, structural analyses may be merely repeating hegemonic categories and structures of power.

Robertson is a Co-founding Editor of the Religious Studies Project and a committee member of the British Association for the Study of Religion. For his full CV, see his Academia page or personal blog here.

controversy

Alt-Right Traces in Comics Publisher’s Past, Now Marketing Trump?

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Pope Francis is an extremely popular figure. His Holiness was once known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina before he ascended to the papacy, just as his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI was previously Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger of Germany. And, at the time of his own ascension, it made no small news that, as young Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI was a member of the Hitler Youth (though, reportedly, an unenthusiastic and even subversive one).

So, when it was announced last year that the publisher formerly known as Bluewater Productions would do the graphic novel The Life of Pope Francis, eyebrows might not have been raised. After all, comic book biographies of real-life celebrities and political figures had been Bluewater’s modus operandi, having also done an earlier biography of Jesus Christ.

Bluewater Productions, however, is no longer Bluewater Productions. Their site currently lists their new name as Tidalwave Comics in its URL and its logos. But traces of their site content as well as their listings on sites such as Comixology and Tumblr still has them listed under their 2015 rebranding: Stormfront Comics.

As noted by Bleeding Cool, that new name has some ugly connotations:
Continue reading Alt-Right Traces in Comics Publisher’s Past, Now Marketing Trump? →

controversy, from the Internet

UPDATE: Ms. Marvel and the Good Business of Democracy

Before U.S. Election Day 2016, Sacred and Sequential posted a critique of the coverage provided by The New York Daily News‘s Ethan Sacks of the forthcoming Ms. Marvel #13.

Good to his word, Mr. Sacks did provide several comments via private Direct Message on Twitter. And, in the spirit of open dialogue, I republish the majority of them here:

Continue reading UPDATE: Ms. Marvel and the Good Business of Democracy →