Frank Miller, the genius behind Bat Man: The Dark Night Returns and Sin City (also the declining genius responsible for 300 and the jaundiced hack to blame for The Spirit) recently posted a blog condemning the Occupy movement. This follows a previous blog in which he touted his latest work, Holy Terror, as unapologetic anti-muslim “propaganda”.
I have no objection to Frank Miller’s politics. He has always hinted at certain reactionary leanings. Still, it is puzzling that the man responsible for turning DC Comics’ biggest poofter, Batman, into the world’s most well-known dissenter (for what else is an angry vigilante?) should feel such such strong negatives towards the Occupiers. They are, after all, engaging in the legal form of retaliation Miller has always endorsed when it took the form of violence.
“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.” Miller writes, slurring his text.” “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.”
How did the author of America’s favorite antiheroes wind up sounding like Abraham Simpson with a hemorrhoid? Marv, the chiaroscuro star of Sin City, was never ashamed to grind the faces of high society’s phonies into the asphalt. Back in the real world, however, asking that the richest scions of Mammon be held accountable for devastating the economic fortunes of roughly one billion people exceeds the threshold of a cartoonist who would normally recommend removing the kneecaps of a common purse snatcher.
Perhaps it is because Occupy has adopted the Guy Fawkes mask made popular by comic writer Alan Moore as its symbol instead of a Batman halloween mask, the kind with a slit for a mouth. If anyone knows which lounge/casino Frank Miller spends his mornings passed out in, can they ask him if this is what it will take to win him over?
