Don't get me started on comic books. You could say they're my passion. They're also what I enjoy in my downtime when I need a break from dealing with politics.
Also, don't get me started on Jack Kirby. He is the King of Comics, and even though he's been gone for over 20 years, I love everything I can read or find about him. I cried on his birthday listening to an old radio interview with him. The hosts surprised him with Stan Lee. Seriously, that brought a tear to my eye.
Which is why when Fox and Friends brought up Captain America and invoked Jack Kirby, I drew this and said "Stand back!"
Looks like they got me started.
First of all, Fox News conservatives have been angry about Captain America since they first published Captain America in 1940.
Before I go into detail about that, let me give you some context to this story. The first generation of comic book creators were nearly all children of Jewish immigrants. Comic books were filled with brutal deadlines and got no respect in the 1930s. Like being black now, a Jew had to work twice as hard to make it into comic strips, where the money and respect was.
Captain America was created by Joe Simon (Lived to the age of 98 and passed away back in 2011. He painted up to the end, too.) and Jack Kirby. Kirby was a brawler. Before working in animation (He worked on Popeye before the animation studio he worked for moved to Florida so they wouldn't have to pay union wages) he was in a street gang. (This gang was the inspiration for Ben Grimm's foil, the Yancy Street Gang in the Fantastic Four.) Will Eisner, still a teenager himself when he hired Kirby, said Kirby was his best artist at his studio. When the mafia wanted to raise money on their towel service to the studio, it was Jack Kirby who offered to "have words" with the mob. Eisner made sure Kirby was out of the office when the mafia showed up to collect their payments.
Jack Kirby would never back down from a fight. (Sadly, that lead to his falling out with Stan Lee and Marvel Comics and later with DC Comics. 20 years after his death, his heirs still fighting his battles. That is a nuanced story for another day.)
Jack Kirby also was deeply into politics. From working in his mom's kitchen as a teenager until his death in 1994, he listened to the news as he worked. (I do, too. Podcasts, mostly.) Compared to most of the boys he worked with in the late 30s and early 40s, he knew what was going on in the world.
Captain America #1 was published December 20th, 1940, which means that he drew the cover well over a year before we entered the war. This was a conscious decision because Kirby knew what was happening and heard the stories of the Jews disappearing in Europe. The rumors of the concentration camps. Everyone knew Hitler hated the Jews, he wrote a book about how God told him to hate the Jews. (Seriously, how different is Hitler from a modern national Republicans?)
You can see what I did to recreate the cover.
Kirby was working in the Timely offices when 3 Nazis walked in and demanded to see the guy who drew the cover to Captain America #1. They never made it past security down stairs, but they said they'd wait. At that time, the Silver Shirts, Nazi supporters in America named for the silver shirts they chose for their uniforms and a call back to Hitler's Brown Shirts, were on the decline. (They were dissolved when Pearl Harbor was attacked.) Let's face it, how different are Donald Trump supporters and Silver Shirts?
Hours passed and the secretary at Timely finally gave Kirby the message. Kirby smiled and rolled up his sleeves ready for a fight. Fortunately, by the time he got the message and went down stairs, the Nazis had left.
Joe Simon said of that time, "When the first issue came out we got a lot of ... threatening letters and hate mail. Some people really opposed what Cap stood for." (Sounds like that Fox News Clip.)
Kirby was finally drafted in the summer of 1943 and had plenty of time to put the hurt on Nazis.
Captain America from the start wasn't just a typical American hero, he was a liberal. Fascist conservatives don't own patriotism. Kirby and Simon left working on the title and moved to DC Comics.
In the 1950s, Captain America became more of a right-wing, totalitarian McCarthy-esque kind of hero. However, when this was ret-conned many years later, they said that was a replacement Captain America. I am coming back to this, so stick a pin in this.
Like in the film, the real Captain America was frozen since the end of World War II. The Avengers found him and defrosted him, and he joined the team in 1964. Stan Lee returned Captain America to his liberal roots. Captain America dealt with the Vietnam War (In a brief story where they called it a quagmire) then he gained an African American side-kick called The Falcon, who is now Captain America.
There were those who were not happy that the Falcon was black, and he holds the important distinction of being the first black super hero to have his name on a book. Captain America and Falcon. (Created by Gene Colan and Stan Lee as a reaction to the Civil Rights movement. Also, he was one of the first black superheros that didn't have "Black" in his name.)
Both the Vietnam story and adding Falcon to the series angered the conservatives of the time.
Then there was the "Watergate" story. Captain America took down an American president based on Richard Nixon in a 70's comic version of "All the Presidents Men." To top it off, this twist of the story was that this Richard Nixon character was the Captain America of the 50s. So the commie smasher, conservative Captain America of the 50's was a fake! Worse yet, the organization C.R.A.P., Committee to Regain America's Principles, based on the real-life CREEP, Committee to Reelect the President, was a part of Hydra!
Honestly, I've read these, they are terribly written and very heavy handed. However, what makes these stories great is that they were angering the conservatives of their day.
To end the `70s, I give you First lady Rosalnd Carter posing with Jonathan Frakes, you read that right, Commander William Riker, dressed up as Captain America.
You can finally say you say Jonathan Frakes as Captain of something.
The `80's saw the rise of neoliberalism and our first modern fascist president, Ronald Reagan. This did not go unnoticed by the writers of Captain America.
Super Patriot, who later became Captain America and US Agent, was created by the late Mark Gruenwald (Who passed away in 1996 to very little fanfare. So little, I only found out he passed away a few years ago.) and Paul Neary (One of comic's greatest all-time inkers.) He was the anti-Captain America, the conservative Captain America. He was egotistical, jingoistic and hot-headed.
To rile up Conservatives even more they revealed that Captain America's childhood friend, Arnold Roth, was gay. Captain America was okay with it.
Also, Daredevil and Captain America fought Nuke, a villain who was addicted to the drug that powered him and had a tattoo of an American Flag on his face. His origin originally had him coming out of Nicaragua, a country in which Reagan (And Carter) backed the Sandinistas. So Captain America fought against America's jingoism and international adventurism.
The 1990s was not a good time for Captain America. Also, he was never controversial to conservatives in this era. (The most notable thing about Captain America was the jingoistic run by conservative christian Rob Liefeld with some of the worst art you will ever see, ever. I can't tell you how bad it is.)
In the aftermath of 9/11 Captain America tried to find balance. It was a story which does not hold up, however it was interesting to read. It was a jingoistic story, yet it humanized the bazillion Islamic terrorists that supposedly populated America. (Plus, it had art from John Cassaday, which is THE best thing about it.) True to the character of Captain America, even though it was a part of the drumbeat to war, Cap tried to understand why we were attacked. It's complicated and worth the read. Yes, it got stuff wrong, but hot-damn did it get things right, too. Conservatives hate this story because they think Captain America is an America apologist.
Controversy continued when the darker parts of Captain America's origin was revealed that he was not the first Captain America. The inspiration came from the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, where we infected African American citizens with syphilis and experimented on them to find a treatment. We did this from 1932 to 1972. The Truth: Red, White & Black series introduced a unit of African American soldiers which were given the super soldier serum until it worked. Then we had Captain America who did black op missions until Steve Rogers became Captain America. Adilifu Nama summed up the series best, when he said, "Truth admonished the reader to incorporate the experiences and histories of black folk that paint a different picture of the cost and quest for freedom and democracy in America."
Conservatives were livid that a black man wore the uniform of Captain America. Editor Axel Alonso (Current Editor-In-Chief of Marvel,who has had some recent short comings of his own recently) felt some of the criticism for this series came from "outright racists who just don't like the idea of a black man in the Cap uniform."
When Captain America was killed (Again, this time after questioning the Superhero Registration Act and forming the Secret Avengers, because what is more American than questioning authority when authority turns into a witch hunt?), Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier (The film captures the essence of the story of Winter Soldier), took over the mantle of Captain America. The first thing they did with the new Captain America? Falcon made a joke about how racist Tea Partiers are. Conservative's minds were blown! In fact, when I first saw that video clip, I had flashbacks.
Now, as Steve Rogers, back from the dead, again, has been turned into an old man, he passed the mantle down to Falcon. Here we are.
The long history of Captain America as a Liberal hero. Only briefly in the 1950s, 1990s, and 2000s was he ever "right-wing," and even then it was ret-conned or just complicated. Steve Rogers and those who have taken up the mantle (With the exception of US Agent) has always questioned the government, and people who use violence to propagate racism.
The Serpent Society, was used beginning in the 90s as a racist organization fighting for racial purity. So it is no surprise that in 2015 they are still racists.
I told you not to get me started.
Sometimes I wish I could post super huge versions of my art. I also wish I didn't use a wash when I first drew it.
However, it let me experiment in coloring. It was a failure for what I was trying but it was an over all success as far as coloring goes. (I was trying to use the washes to create an effect of Joe Simon's water colors.) I made it look more like the printing process back in the day. Think Lichtenstein. You can see some of the detail of it here:
Also, one nice touch was to make it look like a beat up comic from 1940. See the bent corner and the stains and discoloration here:
Jack Kirby's granddaughter has a great initiative which I hope to do something with next year called
Kirby4Heroes. Because comic creators usually have no health care or benefits, they often die in poverty. (The creators of Superman lived in poverty for years. When Superman came out in 1978, it was a scandal that they were poor when.)
Heroes Initiative, the amazing organization she fund raises for with Kirby4Heroes, helps out creators when they have financial difficulties. (Gene Colan received $60,000 before he passed away. Long time readers know
how much he meant to me.) As well as honoring Stan Lee, Joe Kubert and keep Kirby's memory alive, in 2016, I am planning on doing something for Kirby4Heroes.
Some recommended reading:
Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America
Kirby: King of Comics
Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book
The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America
Captain America, Vol. 1: Winter Soldier Ultimate Collection (Best Captain America story you will read.)
Captain America, Vol. 2: Red Menace Ultimate Collection (It gets better, keep reading.)
Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Captain America, Vol. 1
Captain America Volume 1: The New Deal (The controversial post 9/11 story. Read it for yourself.)
Captain America: Truth
Also, as a reminder, WednesdayAPB: Artists against Police Brutality comes out. It is out at some stores already (As Facebook has shown me) however, it's supposed to officially come out Wednesday. Please, go to your local comic shop or book store to get your copy. If you don't have a local retailer, then use my link to Amazon above, please. It is my affiliate link and a small amount of money will be funneled from Amazon to me to help me in my work.
Also remember, April 9th 2016 will be the APB: Artists against Police Brutality show opening, with art and prints from APB, at Comics N' More in Easthampton, MA. Please plan to come; I will be happy to rant about comics and racism. Probably both at the same time. (Stay tuned, this week I hope to hammer out some details and I may have an announcement about that weekend.)
As always, if you like this, support it. As a thank you, you receive bonus Word Salads. This week was very art heavy, so I never had a chance to make a bonus comic. Aiming for at least 2 bonus comics this week.