Proletariat Comics Retrospective

Tony Laplume asked where he'd missed the first telling of my 9/11 story, and I replied that it's in the foreword to Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method.  But it occurs to me that most of my readers probably haven't read PBAM, and in fact, you might not even know where to find it on this site.  I don't blame you.  PBAM sold something like a hundred copies total, mostly at the first New York Comic Convention, and of those that read it, I think most people misunderstood the book's purpose.  That's not their fault, it's mine.

Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 32)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, page 32.
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Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 31)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method (Page 31).
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Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 30)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, page 30.
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Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 29)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, page 29.
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Wow.  There's an egregious typo on this page.

Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 28)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, page 28

Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 27)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, page 27.
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I don't know that there's a lot to say about this page.  However, if you're one of this story's new readers, I do want you to know that I appreciate you coming by.  If you'd like to get caught up on the story and see what's going on, the easiest way to do that is with the tags at the bottom of the post.

• Use the Sunday Comics tag to read Bronx Angel from the beginning, including the Born Leader ashcan that was this story's original #0 issue.  Most everyone likes Born Leader.
• Or use the PBAM tag to just start at the beginning of Politics By Another Method.

Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 26)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, page 26.
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Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 24 & 25)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, pgs 24 & 25.
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Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 23)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method.  Ch. 2, Page 1.
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Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 22)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, Page 22.
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Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 21)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, page 21.
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Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 20)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, page 20.
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Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 17)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, page 17.
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Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 16)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, Page 16.
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Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 15)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, page 15.
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Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 14)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, page 14.
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I posted a link on Facebook yesterday basically saying that I was pleased to see how Sen. John Kerry's confirmation hearings are going.  If you haven't been following, Kerry is the President's nominee for Secretary of State in the second term, and it looks like he's going to breeze through the confirmation process.  Yesterday's report was specifically about Kerry's call for the U.S. to get its financial house in order, in which he called our country's fiscal irresponsibility and inability to make difficult choices our country's most pressing national security issue.  More specifically, without a strong economy underpinning the goals of our foreign policy, we'll be less able to influence other regions of the globe, and we'll have less influence by way of leadership and/or setting the example of what a successful country is supposed to look like.  That message got strong bipartisan support.

Warning: There is a LOT of ranting after the jump.  If you don't want to read it, don't click through.

Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 13)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method.  Page 13.
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And now we're into background.  

My rule of thumb is that background should be now more than 20% of your story.    Here, I think we've got all of one page in the first twenty-two, so that's good.  Plus, given that we've already met Angel's parents, I thought it was necessary to explain how he managed to wind up in a gang rather than at Harvard or something.  

Truth is, a good kid from a decent family in the Bronx has plenty of opportunities--even in the south Bronx.  The problem tends to be not that the opportunities aren't there but rather that the kids' homelives and family structures are often incredibly chaotic, making any kind of academic and/or traditional success difficult, especially in the kids' formative years.  And once the kids fall behind, get the idea that school's not for them, or basically just give up on making it in any sort of traditional way, it becomes problematic--to say the least--to get them to start thinking in terms of reintegrating into mainstream society.  It just doesn't seem like it's their deal.  And soon more chaos ensues.  

That was Sally's experience teaching in the south Bronx, anyway.  

Speaking personally, I only worked in the Bronx for a few years, and I liked it mainly because you saw the whole spectrum of human society right there in that one place.  Yeah, there were parts of the Bronx where folks just hung out on the stoop and watched the world go by, where the best thing that happened was not getting busted by the cops.  But truthfully, that was just a few neighborhoods, and they were isolated.  I saw a lot, LOT more places where there were folks struggling but holding together, doing their thing, and working.  Hustling.  I saw a lot of places that could have been Angel's family's place, the infamous "South Bronx Diner", and ultimately it was those folks and those places that inspired me the most.  Plus, they always had the best coffee.

In any event, Angel doesn't fit the kind of gangland loser paradigm very well, which is why I wanted to kind of explain away his former life.  But maybe that's part of the point of the story.  Angel has a family and Spice doesn't.  Maybe that's all that's different, that one simple act of fate.  Who knows?

Art wise, my favorite part about this section is the way Randy drew Darlene.  She's not too pretty, y'know?  Not somebody with a lot going on in her own life before she met Angel.  Not too  many of her own prospects.  Who else is gonna follow her boyfriend to the south Bronx?  Anyway, I thought Randy captured that very well with her hair because of the way it looks so thin and stringy and with her clothes because they fit her like sackcloth.  No one in comics ever understates a character like that, and believe me, it did not happen by accident.

Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 12)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, Page 12.
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Well, if the last few pages weren't really my favorites, this exchange right here probably is.  It suffers a little because Angel's not more obviously Latino, but still...  I really like how this came out.  The thing is, people don't necessarily talk to each other.  A lot of times they talk at each other, and that's what we've got here.

Like I said, I was really happy with how this came out.

Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 12)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method, Page 12
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So the point is, you can't run away from it.  It's still a debate, it's still an issue, even if you'd rather pretend it isn't.  This is maybe a ham-handed way of getting that across, and it maybe doesn't belong in a book that is ostensibly a re-telling of Robin Hood set in the Bronx, but still...

I kind of feel this way about the shootings in Newtown right now, as well, but so many of my friends are so astonishingly pro-gun, that really, if I let these things get to me, I won't have any friends.

Anyway, this is why I wind up writing on a blog that has not all that many followers--and why that's actually a good thing most of the time--and it is likewise why I don't necessarily promote all of the posts here.  I mean, it is an argument, and I probably should actually argue my point more, but bottom line, I just don't want to alienate people any more than I absolutely have to.  So most of the time, I'm personally a little better off toiling in obscurity.