Flashback: The Politics of Comics (or Lack-thereof.)

Hiedo-ho, cats and kittens. Time for another LAZERBLOG.

I mentioned in my first blog my plans to blantantly plagurize myself, and post "Flashback" blogs. Meaning, I was going to go into the archives of the original Myspace Lazerblog, and pull some old blog that I think are still interesting and readable. So I revved up the dial on the Way-Back Machine to a blog I did allll the way
 back in Febuary of 2008 (before we had even released Lazerman #1) and found something fun.

I also mentioned a few days ago that one of the few rules I had for posting was to try to keep political arguments off the blog. Well as luck would have it, I found my ORIGINAL post explaining our reasons for staying away from politics. So I decided to rescued the old Blog from the barren wasteland that Myspace has become....

so....cold...

So without further ado..here is a portion of the blog from Feb 2008:

...for those wondering what I meant by "non politics"...I'll explain. It occured to me as all of this election hooplah going on, that I should clue you in on our stance here at HB. No I don't mean we're going to tell you to vote for Mccain, Hillary or Obama, or Ross Perot. In fact, we WON'T....

.... I've have had decent stories ruined for me by the writers political beliefs being forced down my throat...and as a company...well we want to be a little more timeless.  Some who have glanced at some of my own scripts (I write a book here to that han't been announced yet) have read into things I never intended on being read into.

It's easy to apply current events, especially hot topics, into fiction...I suppose it's human nature. If that gives you more enjoyment, than that's great...however personal interpritation and the intention of the writer shouldn't be confused. As a company, we've opted NOT to make allusions or parellels to real world events, or people, or politcal views.

We keep things intentionally universal...So if you read a story of ours that has a corrupt politician or governement, we are NOT trying to make a statement about any particular real life figure or institution. If a character displays a political or ethical view...it is not an endorsement for said belief...in fact I've often written characters who think COMPLETELY contrary to what I personally believe...but it's appropriate to the character.

Goverments lying, politicians being corrupt, religion, political affiliation, beliefs about war, morality and ethics...commentary on the president, past or current, no matter who he may be...these are all universal themes old as story telling itself. We want HBComics to be about entertainment...not a soapbox to force our beliefs onto people.

So that was our reason back in 2008...and for the most part, I stand by those sentiments now.  Don't get me wrong, politics DO have a place in the comic book landscape, and can provide infinite (maybe I shouldn't use that word...please don't sue us, DC!) material for story telling and commentary...just not the stories we are trying to tell.

You see the problem with getting political in a non-political story, is you tend to alienate anyone who happens to endorse the opposite viewpoint. We don't want to alienate ANYONE...as I said it's meant to be entertainment, not a platform to further our own agendas.

In fact, just as our universe has a fictional Soda company (Soder Cola Classic!) and other fictional products...all of the politicians that appear in our comics are fictional as well. Did you vote for President Whitehill? No? Thats cause we made him up. Is he a Republican or a Democrat? Yes.

Real-world politicians just don't exist in the HBComics universe.

above: Fictional Characters.

This also gives us some narritive advantages as well...Lets say theres a story where Vindication has uncovered a plan to assasinate the president! So the group has to try to protect Obama! Will they succeed? Or will the assasination attempt be sucessful?? OF COURSE NOT. We're not going to do a story where the real, ACTUAL sitting president dies. And the reader would KNOW that. There's no tention in the story.

HOWEVER...what if the President under fire is President Whitehill? Well...now the outcome is not so certain. We COULD do a story where the bad guys are sucessful. Our hands aren't tied.

And aside from that, it's more timeless. I always kind of snicker when I'm reading an older comic and Clinton shows up...it takes me out of the moment, and instead of being engrossed in the story, now I'm thinking "wow this must have been like 12 years ago!"

So in short, next time you're reading an HBComic, and you think you've discovered a clever real-world analogy/commentary...to quote one of my favorite shows..."just repeat to yourself: It's just a show. I should Really just relax."

See you nextblog.

Chris