ComicsAlliance • Posts Tagged ‘politics’

The Dangers of SOPA, The Stop Online Piracy Act, to Comic Books and You [Op-Ed]

By Aaron Colter

If you spend any amount of time on the Internet that doesn’t involve asking someone younger why you can’t get Google to work, then you’ve probably seen a united and unprecedented team of companies and creative professionals — including ComicsAlliance’s parent company AOL — coming out against the proposed legislation referred to as SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The debate over the bill has caused Get Your War On creator David Rees to start a new webcomic, seen above, called Get Your Censor On. Popular aggregate site Reddit is going dark on January 18 to protest the bill, as is Wikipedia. The video game industry is split over the issue, although most major corporations seem to still be supporting the underlying notions of SOPA.

As both fans who love the comics and critics who believe that the open exchange of art and ideas is essential to the vitality of the medium and its distribution, here’s why we think proposed laws like SOPA are damning to both comic books and the creative industry generally, and why there has been such a conflicting response — or lack of one — from comics publishers.

SOPA came to the forefront on the comics blogosphere recently when Marvel Entertainment and its parent company Walt Disney, along with DC Comics owner Time Warner, were named on a list of SOPA supporters released by congress and publicized online. Seeing the ostensible support of the bill from the two biggest publishers in comics prompted a variety of responses within the comics community, including some pointedly negative ones from creators like Steve Niles.

The internet has become an essential tool for the distribution of comic books and discussion about them. Fans and pros alike promote both individual comics and the medium itself by creating and sharing art on forums, websites, and social networks, practices that are directly imperiled by these laws.

ComicsAlliance is officially against such destructive legislation.

Read more.

- #comics
- #sopa
- #pipa
- #tech
- #politics
4 months ago
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‘V for Vendetta’ Writer Alan Moore Comes Face-to-Guy-Fawkes-Face with Occupy Protestors [Video]

By Andy Khouri

As the co-author of V for Vendetta, the classic anarchist graphic novel whose anti-hero V’s Guy Fawkes mask has become an indelible symbol of the Occupy protests that have manifested in cities around the world, it was only a matter of time before Alan Moore toured the scene for himself. Although the writer and his V collaborator David Lloyd had previously expressed approval of and support for the protestors and are contributing to the Occupy Comics anthology, Moore had never visited a protest in person until the U.K.’s Channel 4 News offered to introduce him to some of the young people he’s inspired to take to the streets.

“It’s a bit surprising when some of the characters you thought you made up suddenly seem to escape into ordinary reality,” said Moore, who visited what Channel 4 characterized as an “anti-capitalist” protest in London. “I’m amazed, I’m very impressed, and I’m rather touched. The people here are amazing. I think this is the best organized and most forward-thinking protest I’ve had any experience of.”

In the clip, Moore comes into contact with a masked protestor and asks, “What is it about the mask - is it just useful or what?” The protestor answered, “The whole character is very relevant to what we’re doing. We’re going against a system that we feel is corrupt. We’re doing the same thing as what happened in the movie.” (Don’t worry, the Channel 4 reporter was quick to point out that Moore objects in the strongest possible terms to Warner Bros.’ V for Vendetta film (and also discusses the irony of the Guy Fawkes mask as a profitable enterprise for WB).

Contemplating the sheer volume of people who’ve sustained the Occupy movement for these many months, Moore compared the protestors to a tidal wave. “I don’t think that they are the cause of the wave,” he said. “They are simply the medium it is moving through. A tidal wave cannot be said to have succeeded or failed. All that it can be said to have done is to have changed things. Often monumentally.”

[Via Robot 6]

Your favorite man on the street reporter, Clark Kent, is back with the question everyone’s asking this week: What is your New Year’s resolution?

Read more at ComicsAlliance.

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chrishaley:

Yes. More.

So last week an article hit Bleeding Cool about how Liberalism is hurting comics sales.

Yeah, I mean, Superman wanting to save an oil rig is definitely turning people off as opposed to, oh, I don’t know, high prices, poor quality, a general sense of contempt for some fans, spotty editorial work, Diamond, shitty retail experiences, etc., etc.

It’s the liberalism, definitely.

-cof

- #comics
- #DC
- #politics
- #Superman
- #Batman
- #news
- #webcomics
- #Let's Be Friends Again
- #LBFA
4 months ago > chrishaley
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Steve Niles Speaks Out Against SOPA and Comics Publishers Who Support It

By Laura Hudson

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) spurred controversy in the comics world recently when a list of companies that support the bill hit the internet and named both Marvel Entertainment and DC Comics parent company Time Warner as pro-SOPA. Comics writer Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) spoke out against the apparent Big Two support for the bill today in a series of tweets, criticizing both the legislation and the lack of outrage he perceived from both comics fans and professionals. Marvel Comics declined to comment on the topic to ComicsAlliance, and a request to DC Comics is pending. Stay tuned for more coverage to come, and learn more about what the disturbingly far-reaching bill could mean for the internet and you at Cnet, Kotaku, and Gizmodo.

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The United States Government Debates Whether the X-Men Are Human Beings… In Real Life

By Chris Sims

If you’ve ever read Marvel’s X-Men comics — and let’s be honest, you have — you’re probably already aware that the central conflict of the story involves the struggle of mutants to gain acceptance in the world of humans that hates and fears them. Since the series first began, the struggle for Mutant Rights has been the story of the franchise, reflecting the battle for civil rights that every minority group has faced in history. What you might not know, however, is that there was a time when the United States Government was called upon to rule on whether Marvel’s mutants were considered to be human beings or not in real life.

It’s reported on this week’s edition of the Radiolab podcast, and as you might expect, it all started with taxes.

You can listen to the fascinating story above — including a few thoughts on the case from X-Men movie director Bryan Singer — and it’s well worth 18 minutes of your time. The short version is that tariff law classifies toys into two different categories. Anything that’s brought into the country for a kid to play with is either a doll, which includes anything that represents a human being, or a toy, which covers anything that’s not. It might seem like a small distinction — especially when I’m sure some of you are out there shouting “they’re action figures!” — but the fact is that the import tax on dolls is twice what it is for toys.

Back in the ’90s, when Toy Biz was making so much money off of X-Men action figures that it was able to actually buy Marvel comics at one point, this was a pretty big deal. But the thing about those lucrative X-Men toys is that they’re not based on “humans” — or at least, they’re not based on homo sapiens. So armed with that distinction, trade lawyers Sherry Singer and Indie Singh went to the customs office to take up the proud tradition of Bolivar Trask and argue that mutants are not, in fact, human beings, and should not be treated as such.

The result was a court case that lasted for years and turned into a hilarious / eerie / hilariously eerie reflection of the struggle that goes on in the comics. Characters that didn’t look human, like Beast, were judged by their appearance, while — in one of the best moments in the history of United States Law — the court found that it could not rule out the possibility that Wolverine could represent a future evolution for humans.

In the end — Spoiler Warning! — the court found that mutants are not human. While Marvel benefits to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars in reduced import taxes — and Singer and Singh are quick to point out that they are in no way debating the civil rights metaphor that exists in the comics — I can’t help but be a little disheartened by that ruling.

I mean, even if it’s just in reference to toys, it is actually now part of real-life U.S. Law that people born with the strange and unusual powers granted by the X-Gene aren’t considered human, and I think we all know where that story ends up.

Magneto was right, y’all. About international trade taxes, at least.

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Alan Moore to Contribute to ‘Occupy Comics’ Anthology

By Andy Khouri

Alan Moore will join his V for Vendetta co-creator David Lloyd among the ranks of Occupy Comics, the forthcoming Kickstarter-funded anthology project inspired by Occupy Wall Street and its sister protests around the world. The news comes just days after Moore made a heavily proliferated response to comics creator Frank Miller’s dramatic condemnation of the protesters, some of whose activities are in some measure inspired by Moore and Lloyd’s work. For Occupy Comics, Moore will contribue a prose piece that according to Wired will “explore the Occupy movement’s principles, corporate control of the comics industry and the superhero paradigm itself.”