While there are plenty of brilliant writers and artists currently working in the world of graphic novels and comic books, two titans stand towering above the rest: Frank Miller (Sin City, 300) and Alan Moore (From Hell, Watchmen). So when Miller recently lashed out against the whole Occupy Wall Street, Etc. movement on his blog, calling them "a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness," you knew it was only a matter of time before someone asked for Moore's take on the nationwide protests. An interviewer over at Honest Publishing did, and Moore gave a characteristically frank response. First, he made it very clear where he stands regarding Miller's work over the years:
Well, Frank Miller is someone whose work I’ve barely looked at for the past twenty years. I thought the Sin City stuff was unreconstructed misogyny, 300 appeared to be wildly ahistoric, homophobic and just completely misguided. I think that there has probably been a rather unpleasant sensibility apparent in Frank Miller’s work for quite a long time.
Yowzas. That actually sums up Miller's work pretty well. But as far as his opinion of the Occupy movement, he has to fall in line with the same right-wing thinking of Miller's, seeing as the various book and movie deals the two have signed over the years surely place them both squarely in the 1%, meaning they should share the same ideological philosophies, correct? Not surprisingly, the creator of V for Vendetta vehemently disagrees:
[T]he Occupy movement is just ordinary people reclaiming rights which should always have been theirs. I can’t think of any reason why as a population we should be expected to stand by and see a gross reduction in the living standards of ourselves and our kids, possibly for generations, when the people who have got us into this have been rewarded for it; they’ve certainly not been punished in any way because they’re too big to fail. I think that the Occupy movement is, in one sense, the public saying that they should be the ones to decide who’s too big to fail. It’s a completely justified howl of moral outrage and it seems to be handled in a very intelligent, non-violent way, which is probably another reason why Frank Miller would be less than pleased with it. I’m sure if it had been a bunch of young, sociopathic vigilantes with Batman make-up on their faces, he’d be more in favour of it. We would definitely have to agree to differ on that one.
So, then. Looks like the Occupiers have a new hero.
