Saturday, December 28, 2013
Countdown to New Year: Day 2
Eagerly waiting for 2013 to be done. The New Year of 2014 is an arbitrary change but like the phenomenon where a person walks through a door and forgets what they are doing maybe the simple change in the date will cause a psychological re-think in people.
Until the Obama election sent a clear message that the old ways of oppression were dying the bigots remained for the most part under their nasty dank rocks. When exposed outside of their little circle of like-minded creatures they scurried away and erased their tracks.
Their bold and increasingly horrible behavior since 2009 is made most publicly evident in the hero worship of bigoted faux-hillbilly Duck Dynasty matriarch and the crocodile piety and exploitative hucksterism of George Zimmerman. For every Phil Robertson that manages to stick around there is a Justine Sacco and Christine Neese that has to flee, deleting every aspect of social media as they run and cower. George Zimmerman is the bloated poster boy of an America so racist they will rally around a figure that a relatively short time ago they would have ridiculed and ostracized as a representative of the very people they target for discrimination. George may be their public face of the moment but he is also considered "one of those" and will undoubtedly be discarded as soon as some other more attractive figure is thrust into the national spotlight by circumstance.
2014 has to be better, even as it appears 2013 was the nadir of recent years. This public parade of hate disguised by religion and freedom is the reflexive twitching of a loathsome and mortally wounded beast too stupid to know it is dead, limbs flailing long after the body is deceased.
Posted by
Sleestak
at
12/28/2013 05:58:00 AM
0
comments
Labels: bigotry, homophobia, new year 2014, racism, TRAYVON MARTIN
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Virginia Is For Prudes
I enjoy reading the letters pages and editorials of comic books and magazines. While a letter page does not have the immediate feedback of the internet forum of today it does allow insight into what the publishers are focusing on. The limitations of space forces them to discard the snark and cherry pick for good or ill the items they don't want to acknowledge or keep the ones that would fit their goals. One exception to the letter pages would be those accompanying anything written by Kirkman. I'd like more story and less chat in his books.
On occasion you come across a gem or two among the dross like the the insights of a young fan who would become a force in comics years later or the ignorant bleats of the racist. Those are always interesting. For example, from way back in 1977 here is the letter that was sent in by one reader complaining about the illustrations that accompanied the classic Fredric Browne SF story Arena.
A few words of caution, don't stare too long at the art below because you might catch the "sexual problems" the reader warned about.Painting by Boris Vallejo, ink drawing by Rene from Starlog #4 (March 1977).
Letter published in Starlog #6 (June 1977).
Posted by
Sleestak
at
5/28/2009 08:40:00 AM
5
comments
Labels: Art, dumbass, homophobia, illustration

