It seems the right has kicked up their fascination with comic books. In recent months we’ve seen attacks on Captain America and Marvel, Batman and DC, the upcoming Thor movie, their general disdain for The 99, and most recently Marvel and writer Peter David‘s X-Factor. We’ve shown the outright hypocrisy of right-wing blogger Avi Green and his reactionary and hate filled anti-Muslim screeds, and are still waiting for a response. Green has now returned his sites back to DC comics and an upcoming issue of Superman, but spares no expense for comic blog Comics Alliance, it’s owner AOL or the website’s staff. The anger is apparent and attacks at time bizarre.
In a post titled “Islamopandering turns up in Superman” on his website Astute Bloggers, Green shows his feathers being ruffled by a solicitation that even implies Muslims being present in a comic. Superman #712 is solicited with the below:
Written by J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI and CHRIS ROBERSON
Art by EDDY BARROWS and J.P. MAYER
Cover by JOHN CASSADAY
1:10 Variant cover by GEORGE PÉREZ
Meet Los Angeles’s newest super hero in the latest Chapter of “Grounded”: Sharif! But Sharif discovers that in today’s current cultural climate, some people don’t want his help – they just want him gone. Can Superman aid Sharif and quell a prejudiced public, or are there some problems too big even for the Man of Steel to solve?
Number of times the word Muslim or Islam appears in the solicitation = 0. And let me stress that word, solicitation, it hasn’t been released and Green hasn’t read one panel from it. But that doesn’t stop Green from seeing conspiracies everywhere. It also sheds a light that it doesn’t matter how a story is presented, even the idea of a Muslim being in them is disgusting to Green. Green goes on to say:
Though it doesn’t actually say that “Sharif”, the last name of an Egyptian born actor whose first name was Omar, is a Muslim, the name and description unfortunately serve as an uncomfortable clue to what’s ahead.
But facts seem to have gotten in the way for Green. A simple search on IMDB will show that Omar Sharif was born Michel Demitri Shalhoub and was raised as a Roman Catholic. At the age of 23 “he converted to Islam to marry Hamama and took the name Omar al-Sharif.” Sharif also had a pretty interesting view on religion. In an interview with The Daily News Egypt Sharif is quoted as saying:
When one sees what happens in the world between the religions, the different religions – killing each other and murdering each, it’s disgusting and as far as I am concerned it’s ridiculous. So I thought I might be useful, I believe in God and I believe in religion, but believe religions should belong to you. The extraordinary thing is that the Jews believe that only the Jews can go to paradise, the Christians believe that only a Christian can go to paradise and the Muslims believe that only the Muslims can go to paradise. Now why should God, in his great justice, make somebody born that cannot go to paradise – it is absurd. Please forgive me I don’t mean to say it’s absurd, people made it absurd.
Wow, it sure sounds like he’s part of a conspiracy to subjugate or murder all non-Muslims. These small pertinent facts took me all of 5 minutes of research to do, which Green either refused to do or ignored because it doesn’t fit into Green’s twisted view of the world.
The next part of Green’s post focuses on writer J. Michael Stracynski calling him an:
“overrated writer who’s dealt in TV, films, and comics too. He may have once been decent enough, but as the 2000s came in, he started on a cascade downhill, and yes, his left-wing political opinions seeped into his work too. This is one of those type of things.”
I might not be the biggest Straczynski fan, but his Rising Stars was a solid comic book series. But from there Green’s rage is directed solely at Comics Alliance itself.
After looking through some more of Comics Alliance, including, but not limited to, posts like the above, I’ll be quite honest here, but I don’t think they could write their way out of the proverbial wet paper bag. This is one of the most knee-jerk, politically correct websites I’ve ever seen, and just one sample of how lowbrow AOL really is as a whole.
The problem is Green can’t make up his mind in his attacks. In the beginning he describes Comics Alliance as a site “leftist-slanted site,” but as you can see above it’s “politically correct.” To be truly “politically correct,” you really can’t lean left or right as you write or talk as to “not offend anybody.” So as a “leftist” website, Comics Alliance would then be offending the right, so thus can’t also be “politically correct.” But, as I’ve shown above with Sharif, why let logic get in one’s way.
Green also has pointed out Comics Alliance covered Everybody Draw Mohammed Day as we as Molly Norris “vanishing because she was scared of death threats.” Green chalks that up to “irony” since they also covered the above comic book solicitation and showed their leftist leanings. Sorry to break it to you Mr. Green, that’s not irony, that’s called good reporting. Much like we here cover comics that touch on this subject, we also cover threats and arrests by Muslims towards cartoonists. That’s called good reporting and journalism. There might be some opinion sprinkled in, but that shows both this site and Comics Alliance don’t have an outright agenda, we have opinions that at times are shown when we report news.
Green concludes with this:
No wonder the art form is being destroyed, because people like these will sugarcoat the industry’s steps no matter what. But will they ever suggest a graphic novel be published based on the life of brave people like Debra Burlingame? I doubt they will, and similarly, I doubt they’d even promote a book like that.
No, I’d say the “art form” is being destroyed (if it is at all, I don’t believe it is personally) due to small minded bigots like yourself attacking it and causing those who don’t even bother to purchase or read comics to follow suit. You’re stifling free speech. Anything you disagree with, you shout down with attacks, instead of disagreeing with it, showing “facts” (I know you dislike those already) and making a logical argument. I’d absolutely support a graphic novel based on the life of Debra Burlingame. I gave a good review for “right wing” comic book The Infidel. I’m about to read the recent graphic novel adaptation of a Ayn Rand book.
What disgusts me in the end is Green’s consistent attacks on free speech. Here’s a better idea. Instead of writing posts about posts about how there’s no other views out there, and the comic book industry is one giant liberal conspiracy, you do something about it. Write your own comic book or graphic novel. Get an artist to draw it for you and self-publish it. I’ll be first in line to cover it, promote it and review it.
