Comics in the Real World: The Teabaggers' Lament (Capt. America, et al)

[villager]

Comics in the Real World, Pt. II: The Teabaggers' Lament

So last month, I wrote of my hurlyburly week where comics seemed to be bursting out of the confines of their panels, into what is commonly held to be the "real" world.

This started with my mom taking a last-minute trip down to L.A., to catch the R. Crumb Genesis exhibit at the Armand Hammer museum. Over lunch we discussed, among other things, our fondness for Fat Freddy's Cat, as we swapped underground comix memories from days of yore.

Such was growing up in Northern California in those 60s and 70s.

But then no sooner do I get home and flip open the trusty retro-fitted laptop to read the day's news -- economy and biosphere both wobbly, prognosis for health of either toward the end (or middle) of the 21st wildly questionable, at best -- than I see comics again, bursting their bonds (bounds?) to appear as part of the "real" world conversation, the warp and woof of non-comics things.

And I wasn't talking about an article on box office revenues, or upcoming summer movie releases, either.

The article(s) in question involved last month's brouhaha over telling panels in Captain America #602, where Bucky and the Falcon find themselves in Idaho, on the trail of the somewhat bonkers 50's-era Cap'n (for those of you following the latest arcs in that title, which -- on any kind of assiduous basis -- I admittedly have not). There are right wing, very white militia groups there, in the comic -- just as there are in real life -- and some of this disgruntled white folks have a rally.

And in those rally panels, as imagined by writer Ed Brubaker, and artist Luke Ross (with inker Bruce Guice), the intersection of inside and outside worlds began.

The white folk were holding an angry rally, replete with signs and placards, reminiscent of the "Tea Bagger" rallies which have spread across America at the behest of also-bonkers media figures like Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin, and picked up by corporate-sponsored right wing foundations, like Newt Gingrich's Freedomworks, to create the illusion of grass-rootedness.

In Cap's pages, though, the rally-ers were apparently more authentically grassroots after all, but the troubles began with the slogans on the signs, including one phrase that proclaimed you should "Tea Bag the Libs Before They Tea Bag You"

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http://www.sfsite.com/columns/graphica316.htm

[rpannier]

1. Interesting

I collected Captain America comics in the late 60's and 70's.
I have every issue from 100 (When it changed from being Tales of Suspense w/ Cap'n America and Iron Man) to 274

[villager]

2. hmm.... all safely bagged, I trust? ;-)

n/t

[rpannier]

3. Of course