When comic book scholars chart the moment the medium shed its one-dimensional sensibilities and veered toward adulthood, they cite Alan Moore and Frank Miller as the duo that made it possible.

A recent dust up between the two shows that making comics more adult was all they had in common.  In response to Miller’s recent characterization of the Occupy Wall Street movement as “nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness,” Moore countered that the protesters represented a “completely justified howl of moral outrage” and have behaved “in a very intelligent, nonviolent way, which is probably another reason why Frank Miller would be less than pleased with it.”

Not content with attacking Miller the citizen, Moore went on to attack his works as well.  Surveying Miller’s twenty-plus years of output, Moore stated that these comic efforts showcased, “a rather unpleasant sensibility apparent in Frank Miller’s work for quite a long time.”

The comic fan community has been shocked that these two giants are disagreeing, but they shouldn’t be.

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Let’s be honest. Movies, today, aren’t just one step away from being left wing propaganda, they just plain suck.

We’ve gone from Dirty Harry to Jason Bourne (or whatever his name ended up being; the camera was too shaky for me to ever tell what was going on). We’ve gone from Humphrey Bogart to George Clooney.  We’ve gone from John Wayne fighting Indians to Na’vi fighting Americans.

But, don’t fret. For there is an answer to our problems, fellow film buffs. I know you’re six feet from that ledge, but let me give you hope…they are called books. They are these contraptions with bindings and pages with words on the inside. Together this all creates a story one hundred times more fulfilling than today’s dim-witted liberal flavor-of-the-month films.

Hollywood has always been a liberal town. They give us anti-Iraq war movie after anti-Iraq war movie despite the fact that they all flop at the box office. But what of the literary world?  They must surely share Hollywood’s contempt for conservatives and enriching stories, right? Wrong. The publishing world seems to get it, for the most part. They like to publish what sells and what seems to sell today are right-leaning stories.

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Rick Moody at The Guardian:

A sturdy corollary emerges in the wake of the graphic artist Frank Miller’s recent diatribe against the Occupy Wall Street movement (“A pack of louts, thieves, and rapists … Wake up, pond scum, America is at war against a ruthless enemy”), available for perusal at frankmillerink.com). That corollary, of which we should be reminded from time to time, is this: popular entertainment from Hollywood is – to greater or lesser extent – propaganda. And Miller has his part in that, thanks to films such as 300 and Sin City.

Perhaps you have had this thought before. Perhaps you have had it often. I can remember politics dawning on me while watching a Steven Seagal vehicle, Under Siege, in 1992. I was in my early 30s. The film was without redeeming merit – there’s no other way to put it – and it was about a “ruthless enemy” and the reimposition of the American social order through violence and rugged individualism. Why had I paid hard-earned money for it? Good question. Before Under Siege, I had a tendency to think action films were funny. I had a sort of Brechtian relationship to their awfulness. And I was amused when films themselves recognised the level to which they stooped, as Under Siege assuredly did.

The moment of revelation could have come at any time. It could have come earlier, and it did among my more astute friends. Had I watched any of the later Rocky pictures, for example, or had I watched Rambo, I might have registered that there was little depicted in these frames but feel-good, reactionary message-deployment. But there were, apparently, films too embarrassing for me to see, Rocky IV and Rambo among them. I remember thinking True Lies, the abominable 1994 James Cameron film (featuring Republican governor-to-be Arnold Schwarzenegger), with its big, concluding nuclear blast – the nuclear blast we were meant to want to see – was, well, more than suspect. (I could never again watch a Cameron film without disgust. And that includes the racist, New Age blather of Avatar.) Or what about the expensive and aesthetically pretentious Gladiator (2000), which I still contend is an allegory about George W Bush’s candidacy for president, despite the fact that director and principal actor were not US citizens. Is it possible to think of a film such as Gladiator outside of its political subtext? Are Ridley Scott’s falling petals, which he seems to like so much that he puts them in his films over and over again, anything more than a way to gussy up the triumph of oligarchy, corporate capital and globalisation?

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The comic industry can lay claim to being part of the left-leaning mainstream media.

Once a bastion of patriotism, personified by Marvel’s Captain America, comics now reveal a leftist agenda by having the Tea Party as villains worthy of Captain America’s hurled shield. So it is refreshing when one of their own breaks ranks.

Frank Miller, the writer/artist most responsible for returning Batman to his dark roots, lambasted the Occupy Wall Street movement on his blog over the weekend. His opening sentence was a barn-burner:

“Everyone has been too damn polite about this.”

His description of the OCW movement–”a pack of louts, thieves and rapists, an unruly mob”–could have applied to one of his supervillains.

The response from his industry has been instantaneous and true to the groupthink of the Left. The unifying theme, apart from the standard fascist labeling, is that Miller has lost his way, both from his creative roots, and reality (“I think Miller saw them filming the giant fight scene for Dark Knight rises in NY and confused it for OCW,” writes comic book writer Cully Hammer).  All of them point to Miller’s groundbreaking Batman comics as proof of Miller’s former leftism.

Before turning to their citation, it should not come as recent surprise that Miller is a supporter of the War On Terror.  His recent graphic novel, “Holy Terror,” depicts a vigilante (originally to be the Batman) taking on Al-Queda.

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Frank Miller:

Everybody’s been too damn polite about this nonsense:

The “Occupy”movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of our blessed First Amendment. “Occupy” is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.

“Occupy” is nothing short of a clumsy, poorly-expressed attempt at anarchy, to the extent that the “movement” – HAH! Some “movement”, except if the word “bowel” is attached – is anything more than an ugly fashion statement by a bunch of iPhone, iPad wielding spoiled brats who should stop getting in the way of working people and find jobs for themselves.

This is no popular uprising. This is garbage. And goodness knows they’re spewing their garbage – both politically and physically – every which way they can find.

Wake up, pond scum. America is at war against a ruthless enemy.

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As they moved into the 70s the world of comic books began to change again.

Superheroes were no longer the perfect ubermen of the DC universe, they now struggled with real human foibles as they tried to do the right thing and use their powers for good. The other main change that Marvel introduced was heroes growing and aging. Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man, went from high school to college and then moved into the real world, eventually marrying.

Under the covers though, there was an alternative comic industry. One aimed not at the kids of Middle America, but rebelling against the Comics Code and  unable to be sold in most stores. This underground comic scene grew out of the counterculture movement of the 60s. Many revolved around drugs and sex, but others addressed hot button social issues and music. Robert Crumb became the poster boy for this movement, along with his  Zap comics, joined by Gilbert Shelton’s Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

The major advent of the 70s was the start of specialty comic stores. Until then, the majority of comic books were sold in convenience stores and off magazine racks in super markets. Many alternative type characters joined the cannon of superheroes including anti-heroes like The Swamp Thing and the new Ghost Rider. Social issues were addressed openly in mainstream comics, including drug use and inner city tensions.  The other major arrival was the graphic novel. While there were certainly book length comics as far back as the turn of the century, it wasn’t until the mid-seventies that they started referring to themselves as such and the term entered the lexicon. Will Eisner’s “A Contract With God and other Tenement Stories” is credited with popularizing the term.

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Mike Fleming at Deadline Hollywood Daily has some details on the upcoming spinoff’s story, which comes directly from Frank Miller’s graphic novel. Because Miller wrote the story for the original “300,” we can have hope that Hollywood won’t break our hearts with this prequel that tells the back-story of Xerxes — the antagonist in the “300.” As we all know, it wasn’t the violence, ripped abs, or CGI that made “300″ such a classic. It was the rich themes that boiled down to live free or die, what it means to be a man, and a fighting for a cause bigger than one’s self. You can bring together all of the same elements of “300,” but if you remove those themes it’s just another mind-numbing video game playing out on a big screen.

DHD:

The film, a spinoff  to 300, is one that the film’s original director Zack Snyder was going to direct. That was until Warner Bros and producer Chris Nolan offered him Man of Steel, and Snyder and wife and producing partner Debra Snyder put Xerxes aside and moved on to rebooting the Superman franchise because Warner Bros needed it. The Snyders have been all over this director selection process. Snyder had written a script with his 300 cohort Kurt Johnstad. Like 300, it is based on a Frank Miller graphic novel that will be shot with the kind of stylized period green-screen action visuals that became the signature of 300 and helped the film gross $456 million worldwide. Xerxes was the Persian leader seen in 300. Miller’s graphic novel told the story of how Xerxes became this peculiar god-like entity. That mythology goes back to the death of his father, Darius, from injuries sustained at the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. Darius had told his son not to attack the Greeks because they can only be punished by a god, and so Xerxes tried to transform himself into a deity to gain revenge.

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Today’s L.A. Times:

For years, Frank Miller spoke of a Gotham City graphic novel that would be like no other — for the 120 bone-crunching pages of “Holy Terror, Batman!” Miller — arguably the most important comic book artist of the last 30 years — envisioned a story in which the Caped Crusader went on a blood quest against Al Qaeda.

Earlier this week, sitting over coffee at the U.S. Grant Hotel in San Diego, Miller said the elusive project is finally close to completion but that the name and central character have changed and that DC Comics won’t be the publisher. Miller frames all of this as a decision that was driven by the work itself and not dictated by a DC leadership that, according to insiders, has long been leery of the politically charged concept.

“It’s almost done; I should be finished within a month,” Miller said. “It’s no longer a DC book. I decided partway through it that it was not a Batman story. The hero is much closer to ‘Dirty Harry’ than Batman. It’s a new hero that I’ve made up that fights Al Qaeda.” (more…)

Now that we know Hollywood will be twisting Captain America into Captain And All That Stuff, we can at least start to look forward to director Zack Snyder’s follow up to “300,” a film that made absolutely no apologies or morally relativistic statements about the exceptionalism of Western Civilization. 

According to the L.A. Times, Frank Miller, the creator of  “300,” has shown Snyder enough of his upcoming graphic novel “Xerxes,” a companion to “300,” that the director has already begun writing the script even though a formal deal isn’t yet in place for him to direct. 

It’s neither prequel nor sequel, precisely, since the time setting begins years before the events of “300″ and then moves up past the first film’s 480 B.C. Spartan battle.

“This movie follows Themistocles and the Battle of Artemisium, which coincidentally happens on the exact same three days as the Battle of Thermopylae [which was the basis of '300'],” Snyder said. “This one starts off with a quick retelling of the why of the Persian wars. It starts off at the Battle of Marathon and then it goes back to Themistocles  finding out that Persians are invading again. and off we go over to learn a little bit about why Xerxes is the way he is.”

He went on with a Greek history lesson told in Synder’s dude-speak: “Darius [the Persian king and father of Xerxes] gets wounded at Marathon and he’s super cool and like a great guy. Even the Greeks are like, ‘Darius is awesome.’ After Darius dies, Xerxes is so distraught, but Darius had told him, ‘Don’t attack the Greeks, only a god can punish the Greeks.’  So that’s when he calls his mystics and wizards and says, ‘Make me a god so I can avenge my father.’ “

Below the fold Snyder does something virtually unheard of in Hollywood today, he uses the word “democracy” in a positive way: (more…)

After I posted my original Early Estimates column on Big Hollywood last night, I received a Facebook message from Platinum Dunes partner and Friday the Thirteenth producer Rob Fuller saying “I hope you’re right.” My Friday estimate last night was for a robust $20M, and Variety is reporting $19.3M this morning. “We were hoping to do $10M-$11M yesterday,” he told me this morning.  “In our wildest dreams we couldn’t have imagined that.”

I originally projected $51.25M for the 4-day weekend on Friday night, amd some analysts have the new Jason Voorhies saga sailing higher basec on early rerturns (I am now projecting $47M for 4 days). The combination of Valentine’s Day and a school holiday Monday for President’s Day make predicting the movie’s long weekend haul a tricky call, but regardless, this is great news for Warner Bros, which has the domestic distribution rights, Paramount, handling international distribution, and Platinum Dunes.

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Part One:

In 2006, I had a minor low pressure area in my brain and conceived a P.R. campaign directed against Islamo-fascism which I posted on Nate Tabor’s “The Conservative Voice.”  The results were swift and devastating.  Like any other branch of the entertainment industry, liberalism is the default position of most comic book creators and fans.

Liberalism has a long and honorable history in comics, nowhere more apparent than in the groundbreaking Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams which dealt with drug addiction, the trial of the Chicago Seven, corporate pollution and overpopulation. In “Death Be My Destiny,” O’Neil posited a planet called Maltus where over-population was out of control. Denny was channeling the Reverend Thomas Malthus, a nineteenth-century Brit who predicted a Paul Erlich-like doom. In “The Population Bomb” Erlich predicted: “In the 1970s and 1980s . . . hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” (more…)

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

SUNDAY MORNING: Dog lovers everywhere united to make Fox’s Marley & Me the #1 Christmas weekend movie with an expected $51.18M in the Thursday-thru-Sunday period for a Per Theatre Average of $14,888. Pre-opening industry tracking pointed to a clear win for Bedtime Stories (Disney), but it was the lovable lab who finished on top.

As an aside, all of us who read John Grogan’s extraordinarily well-written novel should have seen this coming. The book is a joy, and anyone who has a dog, or has ever had a dog, could easily identify with the struggles and pleasures of having a 4-legged member of the family.

The success of Marley slightly mitigates a disastrous year for Fox. Its year started out well enough riding the huge success of 2007 release Alvin & the Chipmunks into January ($70M of Alvin’s gross landed in this calendar year). The January 18 release of chick-flick 27 Dresses scored for Katherine Heigl ($76.8M in the US), then Jumper was a good solid February hit, topping $80M, followed by the wildly successful Horton Hears a Who ($154.5M domestic). Little did Fox know that when the Ashton Kutcher-Cameron Diaz comedy What Happens in Vegas played solidly to the tune of $80.2M domestic starting in May, it would be its last legit hit until Christmas’ Marley & Me. This is a huge, redemptive win for Fox, and its sentimental tear-jerker of a dog movie could near $100M domestic by Sunday.

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