As comics fans, we should always be on the frontlines of the war to protect freedom of expression.
After all, it was our medium that was forced into a severe case of arrested development for a decade. Beginning in late 1940s and led by mascot psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, the Saturday Evening Post and the Readers Digest, comic book creators became seen as nothing less than child molesters and the medium was pressured into “Comics Code Authority” censorship and became trapped in its “childish claptrap” image for a generation. Hundreds of cartoonists, publishers, editors, and engravers lost their jobs; those that were among the fortunate few who remained gainfully employed told their neighbors they were “commercial artists” or some such lest they be chased out of suburbia by an angry mob.
For the past 20 years we’ve had a dangerous clown in the Senate who, when he’s not trying to get our armed forces to blast every Moslem in the middle east into smithereens (yep; it’s Memorial Day, so let’s honor our brave men and women by bringing them home from Iraq) is busy trying to raise our nation’s children on behalf of their evidently incompetent parents. Sadly, I’m talking about one of my own senators,
“independent” Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, a man no more independent than Karl Rove or Dick Cheney.
Senator Joe has actually threatened artistic creators with government censorship if they do not bow to his whims. Yeah, I know, I already compared him to Rove and Cheney so telling you he wipes his ass with the Bill of Rights is kind of redundant. Joe’s spent the past two decades – and our tax money – intimidating the forces that produce video games, movies and music he doesn’t appreciate, all the time hiding under the Great Flag of Cowards, the one that reads “save the children!” Now, he’s turned his attention to YouTube. (more…)