Alan Moore always hated capeshit and wrote Watchmen specifically as a deconstruction of it. imo "The Boys" is just Information Age Watchmen.
anyway here's a picture of Mr. Moore himself back in the 80s, when he wrote Watchmen :marx-goth:
As an anarchist I don't vote, preferring direct political action and comment without an elected intermediary. If I did vote, however, I would try to vote with the way that viable human history appeared to be going rather than against it. The economic and political agendas imposed in the West over the last thirty or forty years clearly lead only to a ruined environment, to international austerity while the planet's billionaires attempt to become trillionaires, to Donald Trump, and to a horrific abyss that threatens to make the English Civil War look like a Sunday-school outing. That scenario, in any sane person's reading of the situation, is not an option. If figures like Jeremy Corbyn are emerging to propose a far more humane and workable direction for society, and if such figures are garnering enormous support from part of the electorate that's been denied a voice for too long, then it may be that this is because people like Corbyn have become historically necessary.
Alan Moore in 2017
Here's something you don't see every day, an internet-averse anarchist announcing on social media that he'll be voting Labour in the December elections. But these are unprecedented times. I've voted only once in my life, more than forty years ago, being convinced that leaders are mostly of benefit to no one save themselves. That said, some leaders are so unbelievably malevolent and catastrophic that they must be strenuously opposed by any means available. nut simply, I do not believe that four more years of these rapacious, smirking right-wing parasites will leave us with a culture, a society, or an environment in which we have the luxury of even imagining alternatives.
The wretched world we're living in at present was not an unlucky war of fate; it was an economic and political decision made without consulting the enormous human population that it would most drastically affect. If we would have it otherwise, if we'd prefer a fixture that we can call home, then we must stop supporting — even passively — this ravenous, insatiable conservative agenda before it devours us with our kids as a dessert.
Although my vote is principally against the Tories rather than for Labour, I'd observe that Labour's current manifesto is the most encouraging set of proposals that I've ever seen from any major British party. Though these are immensely complicated times and we are all uncertain as to which course we should take, I'd say the one that steers us furthest from the glaringly apparent iceberg is the safest bet…
If my work has meant anything to you over the years, if the way that modern is going makes you fear for all the things you value, then please get out there on polling day and make your voice heard with a vote against this heartless trampling of everybody's safety, dignity and dreams. A world we love is counting on us.
Alan Moore in Nov 2019
Alan is what the kind of real anarchist I would point to in the UK, who isn't interested in fighting with reds but instead in fighting the right. Show more of the american democrat "anarchists" that the real anarchists out there don't endorse a system they oppose by participating and providing consent to being governed.
Moore doesn't want a state, but he'll take reds running a state over fascists.
Doubt he'll make this kind of statement for Starmer, despite the fascists currently running amok. It's one thing to support red socialists, it's another to support a neoliberal.
Corbyn's platform was way better than even Bernie's, and I think Bernie's was good enough to vote for.
My guy looks like he's about to go back in time to kill Agent K
he did actually like capeshit at one point, that's why he spent years of his life writing it.
“I tend to think that, no, comics hadn’t grown up,” he said. “There were a few titles that were more adult than people were used to. But the majority of comics titles were pretty much the same as they’d ever been. It wasn’t comics growing up. I think it was more comics meeting the emotional age of the audience coming the other way.”
I wish more superhero fans would admit it's for little diaper babies. I read and watch stuff that's for babies, don't get me wrong. I watch anime and play Mario games but I don't obsess over them or pretend they're more meaningful than they are.
Moore never misses, except I guess that one weird comic he wrote that's borderline child porn with Wendy from Peter Pan.
I think a angle never examined is not that superhero comics are inherently childish, being consumer media they are by nature childish and reduced to a common denominator, but what it means for children narratives to create a consistent characters throughout the medium (with few exceptions) of outright fascists to individuals that would gladly maintain a fascist status quo. What then would be childish consumer media that is not inherently fascist or imperialist? There's Star Wars but that shit flew over most nerds heads that never understood it was legit vietcong in space killing US death squad troopers alongside colonized bears on a forest moon.
most nerds heads that never understood it was legit vietcong in space killing US death squad troopers
It went over their heads because Americans cannot conceive that the US is anything but the good guys.
I watch them with my small children. That's what they're for and no one should pretend otherwise. That and exposing me to Taika Waititi, I wouldn't have watched What We Do in the Shadows without Ragnarok being grade A slop and I'm grateful for marvel for exactly that one thing
Not even just superhero movies. See some of those Lord of the rings fans super into fash shit.
D&D these days is like the centrist RPG, with a little a essentialism as a treat. Pathfinder is the lefty rpg, and the alt right has about a zillion indie RPGs that nobody's ever actually played but one of Gary Gygax's kids tried to make one and it pissed everyone off and sank his prospects in the industry which is funny.
he alt right has about a zillion indie RPGs that nobody’s ever actually played
you forgot about people who don't realize Warhammer 30k is satire.
the alt right has about a zillion indie RPGs
like the left doesn't have 1 billion of our own on like itch.io
I totally see what you're seeing, in fact it's driven me out of certain parts of the TTRPG space because the only thing you can really do is try to cultivate a group of cool players who won't bring a bunch of cryptofash baggage into your game. IRL I play with friends I have in real life who are slightly left sympathetic but mostly apolitical, and online I play with either a group I recruited on this website or one that's paying for it.
At some level, you're right. At another level, you're just doing Banned In Boston and making this shit look more cool.
Putting up a big list of "Forbidden Things" only makes them more appealing. Standing athwart culture and shouting "Stop!" never fucking works. The Soviets took hard lines on this shit, as though they could wall of The West indefinitely, and they were getting cracked up like chalk within a generation. Incidentally, the Evangelicals went down the same road and faced they same ignominious end.
The Soviets lost because they could not deliver the treats. By comparison, China's treat trains continue to run on time and they are flourishing. Treat Denialism is not a winning strategy in a culture war.
Pal you better watch that attitude I'll reboot Spiderman again right now
The real reason they suck is IP law. We could have had some more interesting stuff if it weren't all carved up an divided among several different production companies and studios all hell bent on profit over substance.
I'm still pissed about the severing of the X-Men from the whole cinematic universe. Imagine if there wasn't all this rights hoarding and we could just let whoever make weird shit with the source material.
I wanna see Paul Verhoeven do a Cable movie, or Denis Villeneuve doing a Human Torch movie.
wow imagine if we could have superhero movies made by great directors like Nolan, raimi, zhao, del Toro or branagh??? :mattjak:
He's assuming they'd make what Don Quixote was to chivalric romances; satire so effective any future works that play it straight look silly, damaging the genera or at least forcing future works to avoid those criticisms.
but are these films causing fascism, or just reflecting the times they’re made in, like a symptom?
A symptom, IMO. The top brass at Disney aren't thinking "we need to make movies that reinforce the status quo and assure people that capitalism and America are wonderful." Nope, instead, they just care about profit. Maximum profit possible. And they have spent billions finding the exact cinematic formulas that maximize profit globally (plus some good PR for the CIA and US govt, because that's always a good business decision...)
List of "good" superhero movies: 1. Blade 2. Dredd 3. Batman Returns 4. ??? 5. The SuperMan red son movie that will never be made.
There was a Superman Red Son movie in 2020. It's...ok. Red Son is slightly more sympathetic to the USSR than most superhero stuff but it's still so very liberal.
it's pretty good if you turn it off before "and capitalist lex luthor is the hero, somehow"
Me when Supes tells the American super soldier that he's being manipulated by Capitalism and he can still be saved :sicko-yes:
Me when Supes takes over the party and becomes Gorbachev :sicko-no:
He hated Harry Potter long before it becomes popular to do so and before R*wling's views came to light. He's always into something.
I never liked superheroes to begin with. Watched a couple of "mainstream" movies with them and all I can say is: cringe.
I was kind of enthusiastic about them when they first started coming out and then at some point I realized they were all 95% interchangeable and my interest dropped off hard
Ok, but bare with me. What if there is literally this genetically superior race of people, right? And its their job to secure the existence of our people and a future for white children? And they operate completely outside the bounds of legality or morality, because they are so far beyond the Untermensch they govern.
But now we're going to wrap them in a flag and put sacred iconography all over their uniforms. How about now? Would you think THAT was fascist? Well? Wouldya? Huh? Commie?
