Costs of Conscience

My first attempt at an honest-to-God full time job after I graduated from college was at a public relations firm in Manhattan. It was my job to coordinate a lot of the logistics of our efforts to get our clients better press, and I don’t think I’m being immodest when I say that I was absolutely terrible at my job. A large part of the job was keeping track of various pieces of paper, and one look at my office will tell you what a poor match that was. My real downfall, however, was that I had to photocopy a lot of articles from magazines and newspapers and whatnot. A smart person would have made the photocopies quickly and then gotten back to keeping track of the pieces of paper. Not me. I stopped to read all of the darned things. I was single-handedly responsible for at least a tenth of a point reduction in the national productivity statistics. But while my three months in PR are not exactly the high point of my resume, all that reading did have a payoff. Since the main client I was responsible to was a maker of personal-finance software, a lot of the stuff I read taught me things about the financial world that I probably never would have had a clue about otherwise.

So after I left, I read books and subscribed to financial magazines. I added stock discussion boards to my bookmark list, and started to at least think about retirement planning, how I could achieve at least some level of financial security, and all the other little things that you need to know in order to be a functional adult in the American economy but that the school system never seems to get across. Part of it was natural curiosity, part of it was fascination with the psychology of the decisions that millions of investors around the world make every day, and of course part of it was a very practical desire to “do well.” But that desire raised another question. As you can probably tell from some of my other writings, I am critical of the decisions that many wealthy individuals and corporations make in order to protect and increase that wealth, because I think those decisions are often unfair and inflect great harm on a large number of people. How, in good conscience, could I then try to profit from those decisions through investments?

After all, the Standard & Poor 500 Index, which is the basis for at least a part of the stock components of many 401(k) and retirement plans, includes any number of tobacco and oil companies, companies with poor environmental or labor records, and so on. Right now there any number of mutual fund managers plowing into energy stocks, inspired by the power shortfall in California and the Bush Administration’s “Conservation? How’s that spelled again?” energy policy. There are a number of mutual fund companies that have tried to screen out the worst of these offenders. The Domini Social Equity Fund, for example, is based on the Domini 400 Social Index, a collection of companies that excludes tobacco and oil companies, weapons manufacturers, and other corporations judged to have poor records. The Fund has done pretty well; until technology stocks took a nose dive in 2000 , it matched or exceeded the performance of the S&P 500. And it’s not the only “socially responsible” fund; leading fund company Vanguard has one that tracks the Calvert Group‘s own social index, and there are plenty of others out there. But even these socially conscious funds may not give you a clear conscience. If Kathie Lee Gifford’s sweatshop activities with Wal-Mart gave you pause, Domini would have been a bad place for your money until very recently — Wal-Mart was part of the Domini 400 until February of this year. If you think Microsoft has behaved unethically, stay away from Domini and Calvert — it’s a principal holding. You can try to pick individual companies that you think behave well — but you can never be sure that somewhere along the line, they’re not outsourcing their manufacturing to some small country with absurdly cheap labor.

I’m not sure how proud I am of the way I resolved this potential crisis of conscience. But I realized that there’s a certain amount of hypocrisy I have to accept in myself. I am not a wealthy person by any stretch, but I can afford to buy steaks and wasteful prepackaged foods. I run my air conditioner almost full time during the summer months. I sit in an office surrounded by CD players, PCs, DVDs, full bookcases, dozens of plastic toys and action figures, comic books and other knickknacks. I’m afraid to even look at the label of most of my clothes. So my hands are far from spotless; I’m no Mother Theresa. I like to say I do what I can, but really, I do what I’m comfortable with, and if that’s more than many people who are better off than me are comfortable with, does that even reach the level of damning with faint praise? But my consumeristic choices do keep other people employed, even if it’s not as many as I’d like, and I like to think I’m using the technology and tools at my disposal to improve the situation. If the articles I’ve written about education funding and taxation help spark a dialogue, and that dialogue contributes to new ways of addressing these problems, isn’t that a better result than if I just took a vow of poverty and no one ever knew why? If renting The Matrix gives me material I can use to be a more effective teacher, is my VCR a waste? The only way I can stay sane is to not let the good that I have not done blind me from seeing the good that I have done. I think the same holds true for would-be socially-conscious investors — if you somehow make money from an enterprise that you’re not one hundred percent comfortable with, that gives you a responsibility to use some of that money to benefit others, and turn a negative into a positive. I realize this principle can be taken too far, and justify doing some pretty crummy things and then trying to buy your way to redemption — but hey, I’m a pragmatist. Rough guidelines and judgment calls are my stock in trade. And in a world where nobody’s perfect, I don’t think they can be avoided.

Does Berkeley Have Bite?

In our last exciting epistemological adventure, John Locke tried to split the difference between objectivity and subjectivity by claiming that objective, primary qualities of objects gave rise to our subjective perceptions or interpretations of secondary qualities in those same objects — so that, for example, the exact shape and size of the particles that make up an apple (and which are always in the apple) interact with our sense organs to make us perceive the color, taste, texture, and so on of the apple. It was a fairly decent compromise, with only one major problem: it doesn’t work. Anglican clergyman/theologian/philosopher George Berkeley wrote a number of texts in the early 1700s that aimed to silence the skeptics who challenged the authority of humanity’s knowledge (and by extension, humanity’s knowledge of God’s authority), and his route went straight through Locke’s system.

Berkeley’s problem with Locke was that in order to maintain a division between objectivity and subjectivity, Locke held onto the distinction between matter — an unthinking, unsensing “stuff” — and ideas — the stuff that goes inside our heads, including our own perceptions. But once you create the distinction, you also create a gap, and it’s that gap that skeptics usually attack. How do we know that the idea that we have in our head really matches up with the matter that’s “out there” causing the idea? (Remember the Matrix scenario.) In terms of Locke’s division into qualities, the questions can be put this way: Locke assumes that the primary qualities give rise to the secondary qualities. But the only way we can know anything about the primary qualities is through the secondary qualities! If I want to know how long something is, for example, I have to rely on my perceptions of color and shading and texture to know where the object ends and where it begins. So the whole process is reliant on what’s going on inside my mind — there’s no totally objective object “out there” in the world that I understand directly. Continue reading “Does Berkeley Have Bite?”

Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States)
By James M. McPherson
Paperback, Ballantine Books, 904 pages

The Civil War is such a complex event that comprehensive treatments of it tend to be multi-volume affairs. How else can you capture the political tensions of the 1850s, the critical presidential election of 1860, the transformation of the economic and social systems of the Union and the Confederacy, the intricacies of tactics and strategies, and the horrible violence of the bloodiest war in American history? Battle Cry of Freedom nevertheless manages to cover all those themes over the course of its 900-page narrative, and its extensive footnotes and bibliography provide an excellent starting point for more detailed research on specific topics.

One remarkable element of the book is that almost 275 pages pass before the Confederacy fires on Fort Sumter and the war officially begins. McPherson uses those pages to carefully establish the political and social context of the time and make his argument as to the central cause of the war. Here he pulls no punches – while issues such as states’ rights and industrial expansion were bandied about, the fundamental, irreconcilable conflict between the North and South was the presence of slavery in the South and its expansion into the territories. Southern legislators were dominant in the 1850s, holding legislation such as the Homestead Act and the transcontinental railroad in check, and overturning the Missouri Compromise through the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision. Southern leaders had also been engaged in a continuous effort to conquer new territory to the south of the country and therefore extend the reach of slavery. The Republican Party was no immediate threat to any of the South’s institutions, but the election of a president from a party whose platform explicitly opposed slavery was too much for Southerners to handle. Agitators in South Carolina and other states (known as fire-eaters) almost immediately called conventions to secede, and the road to Fort Sumter was paved.

Once the shots are fired, Battle Cry of Freedom is primarily a military history, concerned with the tactics and strategy of the war, with a secondary but significant emphasis on the political maneuvering and events of the era. Here McPherson emphasizes the notion of contingency – that the course of the war was not determined by one particular advantage that the North held over the South, but instead on the outcome of particular battles that could just as easily have gone the other way. If George Meade had not effectively countered Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg, the Confederate Army may have successfully invaded Philadelphia or Baltimore. If William Tecumseh Sherman had not conquered Atlanta in the fall of 1864, Lincoln may have lost his bid for re-election and the Democrats would likely have recognized the Confederacy.

While there is a certain merit to this contingency-based approach, and the doubt about the outcome of the war that follows as a consequence makes McPherson’s narrative that much more engaging to read, it is possible he takes it too far. The North had a tremendous advantage in industrial capacity that allowed it to turn out guns, uniforms, and other military supplies while still keeping the citizenry prosperous; the Southern army was desperate for shoes and other staples by the end of the war. The Union also held a considerable edge in population, so that it could afford to wage a war of attrition against the Confederacy and simply wear it down. This in fact became a major component of the Union strategy under Ulysses S. Grant toward the end of the war. At the same time, McPherson offers cogent arguments for his thesis, so even those who disagree would do well to grapple with them.

It’s hard to use a word like “balanced” to describe a book that depicts pro-slavery Southerners as the aggressors and hails Lincoln as a great leader. However, McPherson does offer praise for many Confederates and criticism for many in the Union. (Union general and 1864 Democratic presidential candidate George McClellan, in particular, does not come off well.) His language and tone are measured and reasonable, and his claims are supported by extensive citations and evidence, including many quotations from the personal papers of the principals involved. “Objective” is also a loaded word, and inappropriate for a text that takes a stand and proceeds to defend it. Battle Cry of Freedom is, however, fair and extremely informative, even to someone who is a relative novice in military terminology, and well worth the investment of time for anyone who seeks to understand this turning point in American history.

Roamin’ Empire – Part 3

Continued from Part 2

DT: Speaking of the relationship between penciller and inker, I remember in one of the Pounding My Chest columns for Gorilla, you talked about scanning your pencil artwork into a computer and being able to zap it to the other members of the creative team. Does something like that help you say, “hold on a sec, this isn’t quite what I had in mind?”

BK: Definitely – it meant that James (Pascoe) could email me scans of the inks and if there were any areas we didn’t feel happy with I could re-draw them more clearly or he could just re-ink them after we’d talked.

DT: Would you ever consider skipping the middleman and using some kind of electronic tablet?

BK: I do actually use one, but as part of the layout process – I’ve yet to see anyone quite capture the nuances of real pencils and inks – I’m sure it’ll happen though! I use a computer a lot to mess with designs and layouts before the real penciling gets done.

DT: Now that you mention layouts and design, I was wondering if maybe you could take me through the process a little bit — what kind of choices do you make while you’re setting up a page. The example that really struck me was the spread in Empire issue 1 that introduced Xanna. The shot of the daggers almost coming out of the page toward the reader, followed up by the shift in perspective so we see the daggers around Sebirus’ head, was really striking.

BK: Well like most artists I start with a thumbnail drawing of the page – just to workout very simply what I want to tell in each panel and roughly how the design of the page will look. I really like innovative design, but I also feel that the clarity of the storytelling is paramount. I always try to lead the reader through the story in the way I want them to read it. Once the basic layout is done I do very high contrast roughs at printed size of the pages placing all the blacks to make sure the layout is clear and reads as it should . . . in fact two issues of Shadow of the Bat were printed from these – not my choice – but if anyone is interested to see what they look like!

DT: And how do you want the reader to read a spread like that?

BK: Well this would be a lot easier if I could point to the page for you, but I think there’s a kind of ‘s’ design to the first half as your eye follows the knives from Xanna’s hand to flying straight at you (the reader) there’s definite movement. Then a static pose of Sebirus . . . a sudden stop like the knives in the wall around him. The rest of the page is fairly standard left/right movement . . . Sebirus moving away from Xanna implying the lack of real contact between them . . . is that what you had in mind with your question?

DT: Pretty much, yeah. I was just struck when I looked back at it the way you took advantage of the fact that you’d been using Sebirus’ perspective for the introductions, then made the switch to a more third-person perspective.

BK: Well also Xanna was the last of the characters introduced in that segment so the transition had to be made there and it seemed a good way to do it!

DT: So what can we expect from the future of Empire? What kind of special package do you have in mind for the re-release of issues 1 and 2? And will you be sticking with the “new-reader-friendly” concept?

BK: The future of Empire will be full of more surprises! The revelations about Endymion are obviously just beginning, but there’s all sorts of things in the works that I think will continue to surprise the readers. As to the other parts of your question I’m really not sure. I guess we need to sit down with the DC folks and our editor there – Joey Cavalieri – and work that out. I know we talked briefly about a low priced double sized reissue – it would nice to add some extra new things . . . but nothing in it so anyone would feel they have to buy the story twice . . . I guess that’s the tough balance to aim for . . . it’ll take some thought I’m sure . . . so I guess the answer is . . . I don’t know yet!

DT: There’s no time frame on when we might see the rerelease and when new issues would follow?

BK: The plan is to relaunch and then have the following issues come out . . . dare I say it . . . on time and monthly . . . but no decision’s been taken as to when that will be – again we need to sit down with the marketing folks at DC and see what they think would work best. Ideally the reissue would be out a month before the new issues started appearing.

DT: You mentioned that “One day I’ll be happy with my work…. I hope!” Looking back at your career, what stands out as work you can point to and say, “Yeah, that stands up . . . I’m glad my name is on that”?

BK: Hhhmmmm – well most stuff I’m actually proud of . . . it’s just that I can always see area where I would like to improve things. I’m always proud of what I send in – or I wouldn’t send it in. I respect the readers too much for that! I just think that any artist worth his salt should always want to improve . . . my biggest disappointments in any field of art is when I feel like a creator/actor/musician is just coasting instead of putting their whole heart into it. An editor once complained that I cared too much about my work… which I took as a huge compliment . . . and hope never to change. 🙂

DT: Understandably so . . . to rephrase it then . . . what would you consider the highlights of your career so far, or your favorite pieces of work?

BK: If I had to pick a favorite single issue . . . probably the Black Canary issue of Shadow of the Bat. As a run I’m incredibly proud of LEGION as a whole. I’m still very happy with how Batman: Book of the Dead came out. I guess, though, the first two issues of Empire take top spot at the moment – though I think the Dark Knight pages I’ve been working on recently are probably my best ever art wise . . . Bet you wished you’d never asked that question. 🙂

DT: Not at all. Looking to the present and future once again — when you look at the comics industry these days, what do you see? Who’s doing good work? And how do you think we can get that good work in more people’s hands?

BK: If I knew the answer to that last part . . .

DT: It is the 64 thousand dollar question of the moment, isn’t it?

BK: Without question!

DT: Which seems like a shame . . . there seems to be so much good work out there right now, and you’d think that that would be enough.

BK: Trouble is there is also a lot which isn’t so good and if you’re not already a comic reader it must be a bewildering choice to make to take that first leap into the field . . . am I mixing metaphors now?

DT: Perhaps, but what’s a metaphor good for if not for mixing?

BK: As to who’s doing good work – so many folks I’d be shy of answering that – I am on record as being a devoted Kevin Nowlan fan!

DT: He’s always someone whose work I feel like I should have read more of.

BK: Kevin is definitely an artist’s artist I think. I’m also huge fan of all my friends . . . a list of whom would be far too long to give now . . . and I’d probably get myself in trouble by forgetting someone! 🙂

Roamin’ Empire – Part 2

Continued from Part 1

(Parts 2 and 3 of the interview were conducted later in the day than Part 1.)

DT: How are you this evening?

BK: I’m fine – my back is aching a little from bending over the drawing board for a day, but that’s not too great a burden to bear is it! 🙂

DT: In the long run, probably not. 🙂 What’ve you been drawing?

BK: I’ve been inking some of my Legends of the Dark Knight arc . . . my inking posture is worse than my penciling one I think…

DT: Is there a difference in how you approach a project if you’re doing pencils-only vs. pencils-and-inks?

BK: When I know I’m inking it I tend to be a little more open with the pencils as I know I’ll be able to improve on the images at the inking stage . . . I learned a long time ago that you can’t expect an inker to second guess you, so when pencilling for someone else I try to be very tight with what I draw.

DT: So how much more time does it take you to pencil and ink a page vs. pencils only?

BK: Well I always used to think it took about the same time, but I’ve become so precious with my inking that it takes about half or possibly twice as long again. The more inking I’ve done, ironically, the slower I’ve gotten I think – although I enjoy it more all the time. The Legends arc I’ve just finished is something I’m very proud of! (See a page from the upcoming story.)

DT: What can you tell us about it?

BK: Well it’s written by Doug Moench – renewing the partnership we had from Batman: Book of the Dead. The story features some new characters from Batman’s past and ask some pretty fundamental questions about his whole persona. In fact Andy Helfer felt it raised so many questions that a sequel is already in the works.

DT: So the sequel isn’t something that was originally planned?

BK: No the sequel grew out of this first arc – which is self-contained but rather begged a follow up!

DT: You seem to keep coming back to Batman in the last few years . . . any particular reason?

BK: I always wanted to draw Batman – he remains my favorite character – so any chance I get to draw him I take it!

DT: What’s the appeal?

BK: I guess I just love the design of the costume and cape . . . and I’ve always preferred the dark side of characters to the shiny one! That said I did enjoy my run on Superman very much, but never felt I quite had the same affinity for him as Batman – though I would like to work on improving my Superman if the chance ever comes up.

DT: You were also drawing him during the long-hair phase, if I recall correctly.

BK: That’s right – on Superman – I came on board just after he came back from the dead.

DT: What was the difference in working on a book like that, with an established character with an established look — even if the hair length was being tweaked — versus working on LEGION, where you pretty much designed everything from the ground up?

BK: I suppose the real difference was that I felt much more aware that the readers had expectations of the characters before I arrived and I felt those expectations needed to be respected. On LEGION I felt like I had pretty much total freedom to do what I felt was right and that the readers would probably go along with me as they were always incredibly supportive. It’s a very different thing to consider messing with an icon:-)

DT: You didn’t feel like fans of the Legion [of Super-Heroes] were sitting there waiting for you to do something ‘wrong’? [The Legion of Super-Heroes (LSH) operates in the 30th Century of the DC Universe, and has been around since the 1950s. LEGION was a 20th Century ‘precursor’ team that first appeared in 1989.]

BK: I never did actually – I think the LEGION readers were much more forgiving than I’ve heard the LSH ones tend to be – but then I wasn’t messing with any lengthy history or continuity, as I’d been with LEGION since issue #1 and designed most of the characters I felt pretty confident I knew what was going on! 😉 I’ve always made a point of reading every letter sent into each comic I work on if I can so I keep a pretty close finger on the readers’ pulse.

DT: So there was a separation between the LSH and the LEGION, and their respective fan bases?

BK: Well I’ve never really been closely involved with the LSH much though I loved them as a kid, but I’ve heard rumors that the fans can be pretty tough on the writers sometimes. The LEGION readers may well have been LSH readers too, but as I said before I wasn’t mucking about with any continuity that was dear to their hearts with LEGION – I tried very hard to respect their territory and keep our continuity self-contained – though with the fairly frequent nod to LSH stories.

DT: Has the readers’ response to something you’ve written or drawn ever really surprised you?

BK: I’m always surprised when anyone is nice to me. 🙂 Actually, joking aside I have always been very pleasantly surprised by the readers generosity to me. Even the critics have been reasonable people . . . so far. 🙂

DT: Well there’s a lot to be said for that. I know things got a little hairy at the Gorilla message board toward the end.

BK: I have to be honest – I was something of an absentee toward the end due to some health issues in the family that kept me pretty much away from the boards – I’m sorry about that too for anyone reading this – I do think it’s important to keep a dialogue going and for all of us who are concerned for the comics world to pull together – and to discuss things rationally – I can understand readers’ annoyance when things happen as they did with Gorilla and they aren’t fully in the loop as to what is going on, but real life rather kept me away from it. The only thing that did hurt a little was when some people jumped to the wrong conclusions and voiced opinions without finding out what the real story was . . .

DT: But to stick with LEGION for a moment . . . you did the first 17 issues, then took a six issue break. I look at those first 17 issues, and particularly as they go on I can see that they came from you . . . but then when you came back from the break, you had much more of the distinctive style that I associate with you. What changed during those six months?

BK: Well I think the biggest change was that when I came back I was inking myself. I do genuinely try to keep improving my work so I hope that I’m succeeding . . . One day I’ll be happy with my work . . . I hope!

DT: The interesting thing is that the change that came from you inking your work is still evident in your pencil-only work . . . it seemed like some of the characters’ body and facial structure changed slightly, there was more detail in the work; I recall Lobo in particular looked very different during your two runs. Did the inking experience teach you something about your penciling?

BK: I think so – I think I had always been going for the more detailed look to the work, but had been rather ridiculously assuming my poor inker knew that I wanted him to add all the textures etc that I had in mind! I don’t think I was very fair on him at all in that first run 🙂 I had actually always inked myself on Judge Dredd so LEGION was my first prolonged run with anyone else inking me.

Continued in Part 3

Going Back to Dizz Knee Land

When I was in high school, I used to check the Nielsen ratings every week to see how my favorite shows were doing. I remember at one point, I complained about how The Flash had come in something like 80th that week. (And no wonder, since CBS hadn’t a frickin’ clue how to promote it, but that’s an entirely different story.) When my mother asked me why I should care what other people thought as long as I liked it, I (for once) had a good answer for her: if no one else likes it, they won’t make more. Sure enough, the show was canceled after one season. Once I had figured out that equation, “no audience = no money = no more good stuff,” I never begrudged any artist for hitting the big time, because unless the artist was a total sell-out at heart, it could only mean I’d get to see or read or hear more stuff that I liked.

It sure couldn’t have hurt for dada, the trio whose 1992 album Puzzle is on my Top 5 Albums list. The band originally signed with IRS Records, the label that signed The Police, R.E.M., Concrete Blonde and a slew of other groups but somehow failed to avoid going bankrupt shortly after dada released its third album, El Subliminoso. The group then moved to MCA Records and released dada in 1998, before Universal bought MCA and Joie Calio, Michael Gurley and Phil Leavitt found themselves to be free agents once again. At that point, the three members declared a hiatus and moved on to pursue side and solo projects, swearing all the while they would get back together when they were ready.

Now, maybe they would still have needed a break if “Information Undertow” had been all over the radio in ’98. After all, Calio says, “We’re on hiatus because I needed a break from dada . . . this is a result of my needs as an artist, not a result of the biz.” But when members of a band participate in a chat in which their fans ask if they can play in their town and the band members respond that they would be willing if someone would sponsor the date, as dada did in 1999, you have to think that the grind of trying to succeed in the modern music biz has sapped at least some of their energy. And even if a break was inevitable, Calio does say that “the biz was certainly a part of my reasoning to take a break when I did. If we were riding the crest of our success I would have waited until a more opportune time.”

Despite the hiatus, there are a number of fans trying to harness the power on the Net to keep the band’s name circulating. Whether or not they’re successful, they are certainly not unappreciated. “One of the greatest assets the band dada has is its fans,” says Calio. “They are the best. They are a breed apart. They are real music lovers and they have always been there for us. What they do on their own doesn’t have anything to do with me really. they do it because they have a connection with the music and with themselves and I love all their enthusiasm. I don’t know how much effect their efforts have on my career but it has an effect on my personal being. They make me feel like I must be doing something right.” Continue reading “Going Back to Dizz Knee Land”

Symbols of an Open Wound

I visited the battlefield at Gettysburg a couple of weeks ago as part of a seminar on the Civil War. While I had seen plenty of memorials before, I believe this is the first time I actually set foot on the ground where men fought and died. It is an odd experience, particularly in Gettysburg, where the town has crept right up to the edges of, and in some cases right into the middle of, the battlefield. One regimental monument was right at the corner of what I believe was an inn. On the one hand, it seemed somewhat crass; on the other, it reminded me that that the armies of the North and South fought in and near towns throughout the country. I’m not sure that was the intent, but you take your learning opportunities where they come.

Regardless of any perceptions of crassness or commercialism, I recommend a trip to Gettysburg, or Antietam, or maybe some of the battlefields out West. It amazes me to see the scale of these things, to realize how large these conflicts were. And it amazes me to realize how much the Civil War still shapes our society. Intellectually, I know it did, but I had never confronted the emotional response that people have – the closest I have come has been in reading the debates over the Confederate symbol on state flags and capitals and occasionally listening to (and admittedly screaming at) some country songs.

At Gettysburg, there is a memorial placed near the Union line, where the final Confederate assault fell short. (I was amazed by how much ground the troops had to cover, and how little ultimately separated them from their goal.) Some people consider Gettysburg to be the military climax of the war, and the Union troops that erected the monument soon after the war were certainly willing to agree; a large bronze “book” lists the regiments that fought on the Union side, underneath a legend that states that at this point was the “high water mark of the rebellion.” One of my classmates — the only southerner in the group, I believe — took one look at the inscription and said words to the effect of, “Now that’s what gets people from the South seeing purple . . . high water mark of the rebellion.” I wish I had asked her which words bothered her — the words “high water mark”, which I suppose might seem like they’re gloating, or just the use of the word “Rebellion,” which seems to annoy people who would prefer to think of the war as having been between two sovereign powers. I should have asked.

The thing is, I’m not totally sure what I would have said. I mean, quoting a dictionary definition of rebellion probably wouldn’t help matters much. It all makes sense to me. “They rebelled, this is as far as they got, OK, great, moving on.” But that’s because I’m looking at it as a monument to an event a hundred years ago, and others — like the wave after wave of men with their Confederate shirts and their Confederate bumper stickers — look at it as a front in an ongoing battle of cultures, between an industrial North and a more civilized, even genteel, agricultural South. I don’t know how to separate those two perspectives, but it’s something that needs to happen.

Part of it is probably doing a better job with the way we teach and understand the war. I’m not sure that enough of a distinction gets made between why certain Southern leaders chose to secede and why many Southerners fought in the war with great ferocity. For example, I find it hard to understand why anyone could deny that slavery was a prime motivator in the decision to secede. Southern leaders had spent much of the 1850s agitating to invade Cuba or Nicaragua or other points south of the Rio Grande, for the express purpose of adding land to the Union below the Missouri Compromise and increasing the number of slave states. Senator Albert Gallatin Brown, for example, declared: “I want Cuba, and I know that sooner or later we must have it. I want Tamalipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican States; and I want them all for the same reason — for the planting and spreading of slavery.” When American William Walker invaded and briefly captured Nicaragua in the late 1850s, southern newspapers urged Southerners to move into the country, expand slavery, and thus bring civilization to the era. The Kansas-Nebraska Act and Dred Scott decision were the culmination of efforts to finally overturn the Missouri Compromise and bring slavery north. When Lincoln was elected in 1860, the Richmond Examiner stated, “A party founded on the single sentiment . . . of hatred of African slavery, is now the controlling power” in country. When African-Americans argue that the Confederate flag is the symbol of an effort to keep them in slavery, it’s hard not to see the point. (The quotes in this paragraph are taken from James M. McPherson’s excellent book, Battle Cry of Freedom, which is reviewed elsewhere on the site.)

That said, not every Southerner held slaves, and many of the yeoman farmers who enlisted or were conscripted into the Confederate Army were more concerned with the fact that Union troops had invaded their territory than with the desire to broaden slavery. It was, for example, the firing of shots at Fort Sumter that prompted several of the states of the upper South to finally secede; Robert E. Lee called slavery a “moral and political evil” in 1856, but felt he had to defend his fellow Virginians and Southerners. Yes, it is certainly true that by extension, Lee was fighting for slavery — were it not for slavery, he would never have been fighting in the first place, and if he had won, slavery would have continued for some time. But I find it hard to believe that was his motive, the cause in his heart. And I am sure that there were many like him in the Confederate forces. Is there some way to respect them for their loyalty and courage in what they viewed as the defense of their homes without defending the cause for which they fought? Can I criticize their decision without attacking their character? At what point do I go from understanding their point of view to ignoring their culpability for their actions? I don’t have answers to these questions yet; I hope we can discuss them in the forums. Until we answer them, until we can really understand the meaning of the events that have brought us where we are today and discuss them with honesty, Gettysburg will only divide us.

Tax Facts and Fair Shares

The United States House of Representatives recently rejected a constitutional amendment that would have required all future revenue increases to be passed by a two-thirds supermajority of both the House and the Senate. Since few, if any, revenue increases ever pass by a two-thirds majority due to their unpopularity, the amendment would effectively forbid Congress from closing tax loopholes or raising tax rates in the future. Although the amendment failed, a majority in Congress supported it; the final vote was 232-189, short of the two-thirds majority required to amend the Constitution. Given the high degree of support, it stands to reason a measure like this will come before the House again; that support, along with the news that Republicans in Congress plan to pass a massive tax cut that will likely be weighted more toward the wealthiest taxpayers, tells me that we need to have an informed discussion of the nature and function of the federal tax system.

To lay my cards out on the table, I believe in a progressive, redistributive tax system. By progressive I mean a system in which wealthier citizens pay a greater share of their wealth in taxes, and by redistributive I mean a system in which those tax revenues are then used to improve the resources of poor and middle-class citizens, either by directly returning to them in the form of tax credits and rebates or by providing services that they would otherwise be unable to afford. Our current system imperfectly reflects these priorities, as progressivity and redistribution seem unfair to many Americans who therefore exert political pressure to keep rates low and open loopholes; a significant minority wish to impose a flat tax or eliminate most income taxes altogether. At first glance, they have a compelling argument; America is a capitalist society, built upon the notion of individual competition and achievement. Perhaps more importantly, we have enshrined respect for private property and transformed it into a fundamental right, conferred by human nature. Given these principles, why should citizens not be entitled to keep what they earn? Continue reading “Tax Facts and Fair Shares”

Roamin’ Empire

Barry Kitson is one comics’ top pencilers. He first attracted notice on the science fiction title L.E.G.I.O.N. ’89, and has since done stints on some of DC Comics’ most famous characters, including Superman, Batman, and the Justice League of America. Last summer he branched into creator-owned comics, publishing Empire with longtime creative partner Mark Waid under the Gorilla imprint for Image Comics. The story of an evil overlord who falls victim to none of the classic blunders and does take over the world, Empire‘s first two issues were a fascinating glimpse of a world gone mad. Look all you want for sympathetic characters; those few you find may not be around long. Unfortunately, the Gorilla partners were misled by people outside of Image on certain matters of funding, and the resultant financial problems meant the end of Gorilla. For some time it looked like Empire would not be back.

Fortunately, Waid and Kitson have found a new home for Empire at the Homage Comics imprint of DC’s Wildstorm division. Fresh off the news, I had the chance to talk to Kitson about the book, its new lease on life, and his career.

DT: So what is the news with Empire?

BK: Basically that the book will be becoming an Homage title as part of the DC group and that we will get a chance to – at last – publish the whole story without having all the problems with were struggling with at Gorilla – none of which were Gorilla’s fault! Mark and I will retain creative ownership and the whole team will be as per issues 1 and 2 . . . [with inker James Pascoe and colorist Chris Sotomayor] which we are hoping to have reissued in a special package so people who missed it first time round can pick up on the story!

DT: Now what exactly is the difference between publishing through Image and publishing through DC/Homage?

BK: The main difference is that under Gorilla’s arrangement at Image we had to pay for all the publishing, printing, a fee to have the Image ‘I’ and pay all the creators upfront – well before the books could come out. Also as a smaller imprint the printing costs were vastly higher under Image than for DC so the book cost alot more to produce than it will under the DC banner. We could have reduced quality of paper, story length, etc., but we really didn’t want to do that! Actually I may have got that wrong about the order the bills came in – printing, etc. may have been after publishing… but before we made any money 🙂

DT: Are they handling more of the logistics? On the Gorilla message boards, it sounded like you were one of the guys having to keep track of all the pieces.

BK: As to the logistics – it’s true there really was no one other than ourselves putting everything together for production at Gorilla. Ann Busiek was working really hard to keep all the editorial pages running and stuff, for which we will be eternally grateful – but as for getting all the pages put together it was down to us and paying the guys at Comicraft to do the work – like put ‘film’ together for printers etc.

DT: Which must have made the financial issues even more fun. At some point I’d like to get back to the whole Gorilla project, but for now let’s talk about Empire itself. You say you’re going to publish “the whole story” — does that mean that Empire is a finite series now?

BK: Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything about the length of the Empire tale other than it can go on being told . . . right from the start we said it might run for years or it might end tomorrow . . . we want people not to be able to assume too much . . . We have got definite objectives to reach in the story and we know where it will be going for a certain number of issues, but we also wanted the characters to drive the book – so that we will be ‘in their hands’ to some extent. It’s very possible that all the characters we’ve seen so far will not survive for long 🙂

DT: That element of surprise has got to be one of the fun things about the book. Even though I should have, I never saw Sebirus’ death coming in the first issue.

BK: That was exactly what we wanted… in fact it surprised us a little in our initial planning he had been going to be an ongoing figure! That’s what I meant about character driven events! 🙂

DT: At exactly what point did you realize, “No, he has to go?” And was there any resistance on your part to change plans right from the get-go?

BK: We just realized half way through plotting issue one that killing him was the ‘logical’ thing for Golgoth to do despite their history. Retaining power is Golgoth’s paramount concern.

DT: OK, that brings up something else I’ve been curious about. The credits of the book say Mark’s the writer and you’re the penciller, but it feels like you’re involved in the plotting. How exactly does the creative process with Mark work?

BK: Well we used the term ‘storytellers’ for both of us on JLA Year One and that confused a lot of people 🙂

DT: I saw you had that credit on the first issue of Brave and the Bold, then switched to more conventional titles on the second issue.

BK: What happens is that we discuss the story together initially and form a rough outline of events then Mark will prepare an initial plot, which we’ll go over together. Next I provide a set of ‘thumbnails’ for the story for Mark to look through and react to with new ideas etc. and we have another discussion – after that I will draw up the pencilled pages and Mark will add the dialogue to those. So every step of the way we’re in contact and honing the story – I really enjoy the process!

DT: Does that work better because you’ve worked together on so many other projects, or is that an approach you can take with other writers?

BK: The approach generally depends on the writer – but I’ve been lucky enough to work this way with a lot of my past collaborators – Alan Grant in particular. Doug Moench is also very open to sharing ideas, but he likes to get everything down in plot form first before I get involved. Karl Kesel was also kind enough to let me chip in on the plots on Adventures of Superman too. I think it was really only on Azrael – where Denny O’Neil liked to work with full scripts – that my input was pretty minimal as to the plot lines.

DT: Getting back to Empire: what is it, in general terms, you want to accomplish with this story? What motivated you to make it your first creator owned story, and what motivated you to work to find a second home for it?

BK: We wanted to tell a story that had elements that readers would feel familiar with . . . costumed characters etc, but be able to take a totally fresh look at the genre . . . which I think we were [doing]. . . we wanted to try something away from all the accepted conventions of superhero books . . . i.e., the bad guys won, major characters die, etc., etc. Just play with the conventions and people’s expectations and have fun! The reaction to the book was so positive and we enjoyed working on it so much that we really didn’t want to let it just disappear because of things outside the creative process. It was important for us to tell the story if we could and keep the creative team together – we’d all enjoyed working on the book, the readers had liked it and we didn’t want to stop! 🙂

DT: We’re running short on time for this first section, so let me ask you this: besides Empire, what else do you have in the works?

BK: I’m just finishing up a Legends of the Dark Knight arc, written by Doug [in issues 146-148]. There will be a second one to come too. I have a prestige format book with Howard Chaykin and David Tischman [a sequel to the Secret Society of Super-Heroes miniseries] coming up and there’s a good chance of a regular DC monthly book too – so I’ll be going back to penciling only 🙂

Continued in Part 2

Left of Center

Lots of times, political cartoons just manage to get me all peeved and make me throw the paper down on the table and want to just say “screw it all” and watch Friends just to avoid being a part of the political process.

See, I hate political junkies. I hate TV pundits, I hate most political columnists, I hate political reporters who think that they’re actually writing for an audience that includes more than just a bunch of other political reporters.

That’s why Scott Bateman is so freakin’ cool.

Bateman is my political cartoonist, and your political cartoonist, and he’s part of this really cool vanguard of young political commentators that focus on how our elected leaders actually affect us, as opposed to making symbolic graphical platitudes about school violence or campaign finance reform. In a Bateman cartoon, you’ll never see a big whale labeled “foreign policy” with whoever happens to be president at the time dressed as Ahab, running after it with a harpoon labeled “tax cut,” or a cherry tree labeled “education initiative” and some senator dressed as George Washington holding an ax labeled “tort reform bill,” or something equally cryptic and completely unfunny. Reading Scott Bateman’s work, it looks like he realized a long time ago that guys like Berke Breathed and Garry Trudeau and Bill Watterson had it right: Tell a good story in pictures, and you’ll make a great point, and people will laugh. It’s that easy.

More recently, Bateman has been creating and posting his very own Web animation, which often deals with more everyday pop-culture situations, like his “Coffee Achievers” strip does. But you know what? I suck at describing this. Go to his website to find out how cool he is.

Bateman was also cool enough to answer some questions for notnews. Here they are: Continue reading “Left of Center”