Get righteously indignant with them before they get righteously indignant with you
When I saw this story break this afternoon, my first thought was “It took this long?”
According to Fox News, the depiction of Teabaggers in the latest issue of Captain America has angered members of some Tea Party groups, proving yet again that we are in the midst America’s Most Sensitive Political Movement.
Dave Wiegel of the Washington Independent snapped some photos at an anti-stimulus rally in February — one of which being the now-classic “Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before they Tea Bag You.” Apparently someone in Marvel’s lettering department used those signs as a visual reference for the Captain America issue, and now the Teabaggers are upset that a fictional representation of a Teabagger has been depicted holding a sign used by an actual Teabagger. Bowing to the anger, Joe Quesada has apologized.
To be fair to Quesada, his apology was qualified — he believes the mistake was not in offending the Teabaggers, but in tying the fictional protestors with real ones. It’s not an unreasonable argument, particularly from a business standpoint. To paraphrase Michael Jordan, Republicans buy comics too.
I wonder how long until the Teabaggers demand Brubaker be fired. In the above story, Fox News dug up a handful of Brubaker’s tweets, exposing him as a dirty lib.
And speaking of twitter, there’s been a little response there this afternoon. Rich Johnston (@richjohnston) has been fishing for sources, while Joe Quesada (@JoeQuesada) has barked back that it’s old news (to which Johnston replied “It’s only old news if it had actually been reported before…”).
Mark Waid (@MarkWaid) said he “…is humiliated & mortified on behalf of my entire industry that Fox News is able to bully us into apologizing to lunatics,” while Ron Perazza (@Perazza) said “I think Captain America would be very liberal w/a strong sense of international community & public service. His commander-in-chief was FDR.”
And as you might expect from this crowd, Ed Brubaker recently tweeted “Just FYI – insulting and threatening tweeters are blocked and reported.”
Meanwhile, Joe Quesada said “I think JR JR is the world’s greatest comic artist. That is no joke nor hyperbole” which is evidence that you can’t trust anything he says.
I don’t feel too bad for Marvel as it will probably help sales a bit in the short term. The whole Tea Bag movement is just endless comedy from the name to them being a bunch of grumpy old white people with an irrational fear of Obama. Brubaker would probably never admit it publicly but I think he did a good job of depicting them in the issue. It’s fitting the insane 1950s Cap is the one leading them in the comic.
Honestly, I was a little disappointed to learn Brubaker didn’t write the signs, though the story obviously didn’t need to spell it out that much. Totally agree with you on how perfect it is to have the ’50s Captain America in that role.