Superheroes are synonymous with comic books, while SuperPACs are ingrained in the current political landscape, and now there’s an unlikely crossover between the two worlds in the works. Matteo Pizzolo, the writer of Calexit and the co-founder of Black Mask Studios, is starting a SuperPAC called Become The Government to support first-time candidates from non-partisan backgrounds in the 2018 midterm elections. Pizzolo will contribute his writing royalties from the acclaimed ongoing Calexit comic book series to support Become The Government. Last week the first issue of the series by Pizzolo and artist Amancay Nahuelpan was released with a print run of 25,000. Within 24 hours, the book had sold out at the distribution level and at most major comic book retailers, prompting publisher Black Mask Studios to immediately initiate a second printing.
In Calexit, the citizens of California struggle to seize power back from an autocratic government. The ongoing series tells the story of Jamil, a 25-year old courier (aka smuggler), and Zora, a 27-year old leader in the Pacific Coast Sister Cities Resistance, who escape together from a prison camp in Occupied Los Angeles, where martial law has been in place for the past year — ever since America’s demagogue President signed an executive order to deport all immigrants, and California responded by proclaiming itself a Sanctuary State. Each issue of Calexit will also include non-fiction material about local sustainability and grassroots campaigning for 2018 elections.
Become The Government will be an independent-expenditure-only political action committee focused on supporting first-time candidates in the 2018 midterm elections. The group, which will select candidates to support but will not donate directly to them nor coordinate directly with their campaigns, intends to advocate for candidates who bring fresh new ideas, perspectives, and experiences to the position.
Today we’re standing in support of Net Neutrality here at Graphic Policy. You might notice the site acting weird, taking a bit to load for example, in an effort to show you what a world with Net Neutrality might be like.
There are many different definitions of what exactly Net Neutrality is, but it’s basically the ability to the go where you want and do what you want on the internet without extra charges, artificially slow accessibility or blockages.
Net Neutrality protects us the consumer. It stops internet providers from slowing down, degrading, or even blocking content or access to online content. It also prevents deals where those with deep pockets can pay to be heard over start-ups or other competitors. When over 70% of Americans have only one option for internet providers in their area, this is a big deal.
But here’s possible scenarios in a world without Net Neutrality, and outlines why this is important:
Your internet provider provides you the option to buy voice over internet from them, so they decide to degrade or block the competition, making them the only real option,
Your internet provider owns some of the content it delivers (for example Comcast and NBC) and block other services to watch the same or similar content so you have to use their video on demand service,
An exclusive deal is struck where a service, say a video game platform or digital comics platform, pay and become the only distributor or platform of that content through your internet provider,
Business pay, or people have to pay, to have their content delivered quicker, in an age where ever millisecond counts (think stock trading or online ticket buying). The haves can outpace the have-nots when it comes to online activities.
I can go on and on with these types of scenarios, and Comcast and Verizon have been fighting to end Net Neutrality and the internet as we know it. The idea of Net Neutrality is to keep the internet a free and open platform for innovation and expression.
Announced earlier today, San Diego Comic-Con will remain in the city of San Diego through 2021. The convention has an impact of $135 million dollars a year. Negotiations to stay took over a year.
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer emphasized that improvements need to be made to expand the convention center and guarantee the convention stays in the city. Limited space is a concern for the convention, something mentioned multiple times through the presentation. Hotel space, and negotiations with local hotels, was also highlighted. Hotel prices and the difficulty of obtaining rooms has been a concern.
In 2001, a young black man named Timothy Thomas was shot by police, and the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati erupted in protest. It was the first major urban uprising since the Rodney King riots a decade previously in LA. Ten years later, Ferguson happened, and Cincinnati was largely forgotten. Until now.
Dan Mendéz Moore was 17 at a time and a budding activist. As an adult, he looks back at this life- and history-changing week, and through interviews with participant, vividly tells the story, in the form of a nonfiction graphic novel (or as we like to call it, comics journalism). This is the first non-academic book about this story. We hope it isn’t the last.
The result is moving, informative, and provides an immediacy and emotional urgency to the story that text alone rarely conveys. Discover this important and relevant piece of history.
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Syracuse’s Salt City Comic-Con is excited to announce that the Honorable Stephanie A. Miner, Mayor of the City of Syracuse, has proclaimed Saturday, June 24, to be “Neal Adams Day”.
Neal Adams, the prolific and trend-setting comic artist, is best known for his groundbreaking comic art on characters like Batman, Green Arrow, Superman and the X-Men. Adams is respected for his innovative work in advertising and his passionate efforts championing creators’ rights. Adams is the Guest of Honor at Syracuse’s Salt City Comic-Con this weekend, June 24th and 25th.
The proclamation recognizes that “Neal Adams has been inspiring generations with his skills and vision for the past five decades in comics, graphic novels, and advertising, with his artistic trailblazing, integrity and innovation.
Neal Adams will be meeting fans at his exhibition booth on the showroom floor during this two-day event in downtown Syracuse’s Oncenter.
Our own Brett Schenker will moderate the highly anticipated Neal Adams Panel Discussion Sunday in the Oncenter’s “Hall of Justice” from noon to 1:00 pm.
Neal Adams will also be making a pre-show appearance at Larger Than Life Toys & Comics in the Great Northern Mall in Clay, NY. The event is scheduled from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm on Thursday, June 22nd and there is no admission fee.
Syracuse’s Salt City Comic-Con, celebrating its fourth year, moves to the Oncenter’s War Memorial building in downtown Syracuse this weekend, June 24th and 25th. This pop-culture convention focuses on comics, toys, games, cosplay and collectibles. Pre-sale tickets are available online.
Wonder Woman is a cultural phenomenon from playgrounds to Hollywood. A character and then movie designed with feminist intent has captivated audiences and become this summer’s biggest hit.
What does Wonder Woman have to say about women’s struggles with patriarchy and which bullets of oppression does she fail to deflect with her magic bracelets?
How are fans already using the movie to organize for women’s empowerment and can the movie be an entry point for better representation moving forward? Can Wonder Woman live up to her potential and can organizers use the box office hit to promote an agenda of social change?
Join us to discuss these questions and more on Twitter for the next #PopPoliticsChat on Wednesday, June 21st at 9 pm ET.
The panelists:
Anita Jackson is MomsRising’s Digital Communications Director. MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to achieve economic security for all moms, women, and families in the US. Anita leads creative communications campaigns that center marginalized voices, support policy-changing grassroots action, and drive organizational growth. Anita’s work on strategic intersectional communication is integrated with every campaign. On Twitter as @Anita_Sarah
Cher Martinetti is a NYC based entertainment & pop culture journalist, humor writer, and host. She’s the founder & managing editor of Syfy Wire’s Fangrrls, a female centric genre vertical on Syfy Wire that launched in 2016. She’s the host of the popular podcast The Churn, the official post-show wrap-up podcast of Syfy’s critically acclaimed space opera The Expanse. In 2017 she cofounded Legion of Women Writers: a professional networking group for women writers that aims to address various issues women writers face in the workplace, such as sexism, sexual harassment, equal pay, and representation in media. On Twitter as @TheCherness
Caitlin Rosberg is a writing, knitting, tea drinking, baking machine with all the requisite robotic enhancements. She is obsessed with her dog and b-list comic book characters named Jim. A regular at Ladies’ Night at Graham Cracker Comics in the Loop, she’s also an editor and counter-of-beans for the Ladies’ Night Anthology, as well as a contributor to the A.V. Club’s Comics Panel. She likes talking and writing about the importance of safe spaces in nerd culture, how to start your own ladies’ night, independent publishing, and diversity in comic books. Ask her about Rhodey. On Twitter as @crosberg.
Because it’s simple for the media to report basic facts: polls, standings, vote counts. But think about your life– is there a series of metrics or key performance indicators that can truly reflect your life, your work, your relationships, or the things that really matter? And yet that is how most of us view Congress– through the endless fascination with the scoreboard.
Herein, in my inaugural article (I promise I’ll start talking about movies, comics, and TV soon), I want to talk about baseball, I want to talk about partisanship and the twin-headed dragon that brought us here, and also how, of all things, Looney Tunes offers us a way forward– past just scoreboard, scoreboard, scoreboard.
Because this annual charity baseball game is so much more. Members of Congress describe it as one of the highlights of their year, building important bipartisan relationships. Rep. Pat Meehan (R-PA) choked up in a segment on NPR describing his *gasp!* friendship with Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan: “I’ve struck him out on a curve ball a couple of years ago, and every time we see each other, we talk about that. And he just came up and gave me a hug. And it is – it tells you how much we share that’s just something away from this.” (emphasis added)
Decrying “partisanship” is not new– it was well documented in numerous academic articles and journalistic exposes, including Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin in her 2007 book Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship Is Poisoning the House of Representatives, where she noted Democrats and Republicans don’t even go to the same cocktail parties any more. People long for the days when Speaker Tip O’Neill and President Ronald Reagan would get together for drinks.
Bipartisanship seems the cause celebre of every would-be “centrist” “thought leader” inside the DC bubble who claims that both sides are equally as fault and if only everyone was just “nice” to each other, things would be ok. This is not that article.
Because it not only views relatively recent history through rose-colored glasses, but also paints an unrealistic expectation of what we want and what we desire. Responding to his father being namechecked by both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in the 2012 debates, Tip O’Neill’s son pointed out the many ways his father fought Reagan and his agenda tooth and nail.
So, what changed? Did we change? Have we gotten meaner? Who started this slide towards more partisanship?
Rather than cast blame immediately (duh, everyone knows it’s the Republicans’ fault!) I’d rather talk about systemic issues that poison the environment for everyone, making a charity baseball game the rarity rather than the norm. Those two systemic issues are money and gerrymandering.
The amount of money flowing into our elections has exploded. The cost of Congressional Elections has nearly doubled since the 1990s, and had its largest jump between the 2008 and 2010 election cycles. What happened then? Citizens United v FEC, of course. And it’s worth noting we don’t even know how much money has been spent by SuperPACs since then, as none of that spending has to be disclosed.
The average member of Congress spends far more time in their work week dialing for dollars and less time actually governing– with the parties demanding they spend 30 hours a week dialing for dollars and being told to raise ridiculous sums like $18,000 dollars per day.
And, of course, who gives money and what motivates donors? Stories of bipartisan cooperation? Or shows of bravado and signalling your opposition to the other side? If your issue is (abortion, taxes, health care), you will not be motivated to help someone who is “selling out” to, cooperating with the other side– you will fund a filibusterer if it prevents your most hated bill from becoming law. This creates and reinforces the in-group/out-group dynamic that turns political parties into merely the teams wearing the other jersey.
And the second issue is gerrymandering. With members of Congress increasingly likely to live in “safe” districts whose only real challenge could come in the primary, you have every incentive to be as far right or far left as possible. Rarely do primary challengers win based on the idea that “we just need to work with the other side more.”
And so these issues, since they are systemic, exist in both parties. But, rather than fall trap to the fallacy that since both sides have the problem they are both equally at fault, let’s be very clear that the overwhelming beneficiaries of more money and more gerrymandering have been Republicans. And very few of them, and none in their leadership, are working on campaign finance reform or redistricting reform. Indeed, many are flatly opposed.
But it doesn’t have to be like this.
By removing Big Money and Gerrymandering from the system, we can remove at least some of the systemic issues that keep Republicans and Democrats from working together. But I mentioned Looney Tunes, and that’s where I’m going to end.
Sam the Sheepdog and Ralph the Wolf are two slightly less-well-known characters from the Chuck Jones classic era, and folks will notice the similarities between Ralph and Wile Coyote. But the key conceit of these cartoons is that Sam and Ralph live together, are friends, and then punch the clock and are immediately working at cross-purposes– usually to inflict violence upon the other.
It is definitely naive to think our politics can be this way. But it’s a nice dream. I’m not saying it’s possible, I’m saying it is worth striving for and far superior to our present situation.
I don’t want our politics to be some mealy-mouthed wishy-washy bland amalgam of discourse, any moreso than I would want to go to a baseball game to see weak hitting, poor pitching, and incompetent fielding. Give me the best– a real challenge of wills with everyone bringing their best. I want grand debates about real issues, and the best ideas clashing against the best issues. I want Republicans and Democrats at each others’ rhetorical throats reminiscent of other great debates among great thinkers in our past.
But I don’t want them to hate each other. I don’t want us to hate each other. And this week– hell, these last six months several years– we’ve seen what happens when we allow infantile debate and personal vitriol to replace grand ideas.
We should be Sam the Sheepdog and Ralph the Wolf– and when the workday is over, we punch the clock and go have a drink together. We should be the Yankees and the Red Sox during a tight pennant race. We should try to overcome those things that divide us so a single yearly baseball game isn’t the only highlight members of Congress look forward to where they forge real relationships among political rivals.
Are you MAD About Trump? There is no president in American history more deserving of being mercilessly mocked, relentlessly ridiculed and savagely satirized than Donald Trump. Luckily, MAD Magazine is here to do the job! #MADaboutTrump
An all-out comedic assault on the most idiotic idiot ever to reach the White House (George W. Bush and visitors included)! In these 128 pages, is a full-out assail to the chief, spoofing every aspect of Donald Trump’s career.
eaturing a foreword by CNN correspondent Jake Tapper, this book offers MAD’s best reprinted material with the sharpest satiric shots at “The Donald,” comically chronicling his rise from obnoxious businessman to really obnoxious reality show host to uber obnoxious “Commander-in-Tweet.” It’s going to be very, very, very good. Very good.
Please note: MAD will not offer refunds on this book in the likely event of President Trump’s impeachment. Sad!
MAD About Trump: A Brilliant Look at Our Brainless President will be available in bookstores everywhere on Tuesday, June 20th.
Actor J.G. Hertzler, who played Klingon General Martok on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, is running for Congress against Rep. Tom Reed in New York’s 23rd District which extends along New York’s border with Pennsylvania from the shores of Lake Erie in Chautauqua County to the suburbs of Binghamton in Tioga County. Hertzler filed last week with the Federal Elections Commission to run as a
In the announcement, he said he “disagree(s) with everything Reed supports, including his unrelenting support of Trumpster.”
Hertzler filed last week with the Federal Elections Commission to run as a Demcorat for the seat.
But, there’s a twist!
Hertzler will be making appearances some times as himself and some times as Mark Twain. Hertzler sees this as a “valentine” to Samuel Clemens who used the pen name of Twain. Hertzler sees Twain as a brilliant humorist for all ages.
Hertzler is currently an elected town board member in Ulysses, NY.
I love superhero movies. Like, my love for superhero movies borders on obsessive. (I saw Ant-Man on opening night. I already know what I’m doing for Valentine’s Day next year, and it’s seeing Black Panther. I will never, ever forgive Joss Whedon for Age of Ultron.) And I fracking loveWonder Woman, which may come as a surprise to some who know me for my work against Israel‘s occupation of the Palestinians.
First, Wonder Woman is an actual good superhero movie. It has an actual plot, several characters grow and change in meaningful ways, and the fight scenes are meaningful parts of all that plot and character development. Superhero movies are starting to ruin themselves, and it’s so satisfying to see a superhero movie use its tropes to tell a genuinely great story.
But more than that, it’s a superhero movie that doesn’t glorify violence. It’s an explicitly feminist superhero movie that doesn’t argue that women joining in on militarism is feminist — because feminism instead requires honoring every person’s humanity. Wonder Woman manages to make a coherent, compelling argument that violence doesn’t fix anything. Wonder Woman shows us that killing someone might stop that person from killing others, but killing someone doesn’t have the power to end suffering. Only loving each other, strategically, even when it’s hard, can do that.
This message is especially meaningful because Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot served in the Israel Defense Forces and makes a point to speak positively of her military experience, ignoring that her military service was a contribution to Israel’s decades-long military occupation of the Palestinians. As she told The Daily Beast, “I want people to have a good impression of Israel”. (Loving problematic things is hard, and I respect the hell out of people who are skipping Wonder Woman because of Gal Gadot’s politics.)
I’m glad the talents behind Wonder Woman decided to alter the canon to tell a story of World War I, again for two reasons. First, it makes it a better movie, because there’s already a great superhero movie about a hyper-competent brunette soldier and her boyfriend Steve who dies in an airplane in World War II. (Seriously, Wonder Woman manages to feel so fresh despite sharing many plot points with Captain America: The First Avenger. See: the hero gaining military training by subterfuge, a disfigured science-y supervillain who wears a mask, the romantic leads’ witty banter about sex and military tactics, the hero undertaking an unauthorized rescue mission and stopping the enemy’s chemical warfare alongside their international and racially diverse hand-picked special forces unit, a battlefield goodbye to doomed romance, a solemn celebration of the end of the war, etc. At least Diana and her Steve got laid, sorry Peggy and other Steve.)
But more than that, it gives the movie room to breathe that it might not have were its Israeli actress fighting Nazis on screen.
Extremely valid Jewish trauma from the Holocaust was the most reasonable of causes for many Jews to move to Palestine after World War II. Extremely valid Jewish trauma from the Holocaust, generations later, is much of what Jewish institutions throw in our faces unreasonably when a Jew speaks out against Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians. (Coincidentally, that’s what I was doing the same day as I saw Wonder Woman — and shortly before I crashed the Celebrate Israel Parade to hold a “No Celebration with Occupation” banner with IfNotNow, I saw a parade spectator wearing a “Magneto Was Right” t-shirt, which is a whole other essay about Jewish Holocaust trauma and troubling relationships to violence.)
Gal Gadot, with her decidedly non-English name, is visibly Jewish in a way her comic book actress contemporaries Natalie Portman (Thor’s genius girlfriend Jane Foster) and Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff, who deserves her own Black Widow trilogy) are not. Surely many of us might feel some satisfaction to watch a famously Jewish actress punch Nazis in the face. But I suspect that, were Wonder Woman set in World War II, we would not have seen Diana be so forgiving to German soldiers once the immediate threat had passed. And that would have made Wonder Woman a lesser movie.
Diana seeks to kill Ares, believing that destroying him will end humanity’s inhumanity. She kills General Ludendorff, mistaking him for Ares, and finally kills Ares himself, but she spares Doctor Maru, whose supervillainous mustard gas had killed the villagers Diana had saved just days before. She spares the German soldiers who survived her battle with Ares. Diana knows that more killing will not end inhumanity, only love can do that.
The Israeli government and mainstream Jewish institutions refuse to allow our community to forgive, to spare those perceived as enemies, and that institutional refusal to honor Palestinians’ humanity in particular makes its way past our gas masks of critical thinking and into our minds and souls. As I saw Diana lift that tank over Doctor Maru, weigh the moral choice before her, and decide that this death would cost more than it would save, I couldn’t help thinking of Gal Gadot’s Instagram post in support of the Israeli troops who were attacking Palestinians during the 2014 Gaza war.
Did Doctor Maru deserve to die for her crimes against humanity? It’s not about what she deserved, it’s about what you believe.
What’s so delightful about superhero stories is their ability to help us imagine what we might do if regular social norms or the laws of physics didn’t apply to us. They invite us to imagine who we might be if what holds us back weren’t there, and they invite us to consider whether the things holding us back are truly strong enough to stop us.
Diana, Princess of Themyscira, is a goddess, trained in combat by the Amazons to protect all life, raised in a peaceful (and queer, fight me) paradise, with no understanding of or patience for the misogynist, racist social mores of 1910s Europe. The rules don’t apply to her. I can’t fly, and neither can Gal Gadot, and sadly, neither of us has a Lasso of Truth. I’m an American Jew and I don’t know what it’s like to choose between jail time and mandatory service in an occupying army — but Gal Gadot does, and she made her choice. I do know I can expect some nonsense on Twitter for this piece, and I can expect continued hostility from Jewish institutions for my work to oppose the occupation.
The laws of physics and the expectations of our communities apply to us mere mortals. Those expectations that our communities place on us can feel as heavy as gravity, but they are not gravity, and we can choose to flex our ordinary, non-super muscles and push back.
Do Israelis and Palestinians deserve freedom and dignity? It’s not about what our people deserve, it’s about what our people believe.
It feels like too much to hope, but maybe some of the little Israelis who go see Wonder Woman because of Gal Gadot will internalize the movie’s message. Maybe they’ll grow up to refuse to occupy in part because of the example set by Diana, Princess of Themyscira.
Jill Raney is an anti-oppression advocate, entrepreneur, and enthusiastic genre nerd. They live in Washington, DC, where they are a member of IfNotNow, the Jewish movement to end our community’s support for the occupation.
Syracuse’s Salt City Comic-Con
Actor J.G. Hertzler, who played Klingon General Martok on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, is running for Congress against Rep. Tom Reed in New York’s 23rd District which extends along New York’s border with Pennsylvania from the shores of Lake Erie in Chautauqua County to the suburbs of Binghamton in Tioga County. Hertzler filed last week with the Federal Elections Commission to run as a
by Jill Raney
This message is especially meaningful because Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot served in the Israel Defense Forces and 