Wesmorgan1's Profile
wesmorgan1 Free
Recent Comments
- 15 days ago on Crankshaft
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16 days ago
on Cleats
Not at all! My high school was the same way, and back then the NRA was known for teaching responsible gun ownership and safety instead of being a multimillion-dollar shill/lobby for gun manufacturers.
There’s no reason we can’t have reasonable gun control measures that distinguish among hunting long guns, handguns, and military-grade firearms; we can talk about urban-vs-rural situations as well. The all-or-nothing argument is senseless, in my opinion.
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19 days ago
on Cleats
Tell that to the mother whose kid was shot by a triggerhappy cop while playing with one of those orange-tipped toys.
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21 days ago
on Cleats
Given the frequency with which cops shoot kids with toy guns, I wouldn’t have my kids running around with any toy even remotely resembling a functional firearm. I’d probably allow it in my privacy-fenced yard, but I would not allow them to roam city streets with toy guns.
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23 days ago
on Crankshaft
Yup; both were in 1971, but I think the Spider-Man arc came a few months before DC’s GL/GA arc.
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23 days ago
on Crankshaft
Both were in 1971, I believe; I’m going from memory here, but I think that the Spider-Man arc preceded the GA/GL arc by a few months.
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23 days ago
on Crankshaft
There seem to be quite a few people in this discussion who don’t realize that comics are often the target of censorship, including censorship in public schools.
The most well-known examples of recent years would probably be “Gender Queer: A Memoir” and “Maus”, but there have been several others; see the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s website for further details.
Of course, comic book publishers were subject to censorship for up to 60+ years under the Comics Code Authority, and the heyday of underground comix arguably arose in the 1960s due to those comics’ treatment of topics forbidden by the Code.
The censorship of comics is absolutely relevant to this storyline, because censorship is censorship. Do we have to wait for the graphic novel adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 to become a specific target of would-be censors before acknowledging that fact?
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23 days ago
on Crankshaft
“Fake Stan Lee quote mining”? Seriously? I guess you’re just assuming that it’s fake?
Lee wrote that line for the character of George Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man; in the comic, it was a criticism of J. Jonah Jameson.
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23 days ago
on Crankshaft
While this storyline is based on the strip’s public schools, the larger topic is censorship – and both location and medium are irrelevant to that larger topic.
The people going after books in schools and school libraries are going after the same books in public libraries. Please take a look at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s website; you’ll find multiple examples of would-be censors at work in public schools and public libraries alike. If they aren’t making a distinction between the two, why should we make distinctions among their censorship efforts?
While we’re at it, I’d say that the challenges and/or removals of ‘Maus’ from schools (from both curricula and regular library holdings) in Tennessee, Texas, and Missouri certainly support the notion that Lee’s quote – and Batiuk’s use of it – are directly relevant, even in the narrower context you suggest.
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23 days ago
on Crankshaft
“Trivializes”? Try “directly relevant”. Comic books went through their own time of censorship and bans in the US, and Stan Lee dealt with it firsthand. Take a look at the ‘Comics Code Authority’. As Wikipedia notes:
Before the CCA was adopted, some cities already had organized public burnings and bans on comic books. The city councils of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Houston, Texas, passed ordinances banning crime and horror comics, although an attempt by Los Angeles County, California, was deemed unconstitutional by the courts. In his introduction to Archie Americana Series Best of the Fifties, editor Victor Gorelick reminisced about the code, writing, “My first assignment, as a new art assistant, was to remove cleavages and lift up low cut blouses on Katy Keene.” (end quote)
In the early 1970s, Lee personally defied the CCA by publishing an “unapproved” three-issue Spider-Man story that dealt with the issue of drug abuse, after being asked to write and publish such a story by what is now the Department of Health and Human Services. (I read those comics at the time.) The CCA and its accompanying censorship lasted roughly 50 years before it finally died off in 2011.
Comic books are often targeted by today’s would-be censors, banners, and burners; check out the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund for details.
Stan Lee spent decades writing and editing with censors reviewing every piece of his work; it would be a mistake to trivialize his views on the question.
ps> The quote is not from Lee directly; rather, he wrote that dialogue for a character, George Stacy.
Oh, good grief, this strip just broke a 7- or 8-day run of consecutive appearances, and now you’re whining after a single strip without him?
Yeesh.