A Geek History of Time - Episode 38- V For Vendetta Part I

Episode Date: January 25, 2020

This week, comic book writer Tim Watts joins Damian for a discussion of the changing resonance of V for Vendetta over time and across media (the comic was better, fight me, sincerely Ed).

And we begin with good day, sir. Geeks come in all shapes and sizes, and that they come into all kinds of things. I was thinking more about the satanic panic. Buy the scholar Gary Guy-Gak's. Well, wait, hold on. I said good day, sir. Not defending Roman slavery by any stretch. No, but that's bad.

Let him vote. Fuck off. When historians, especially British historians, want to get cute. It's in there. Okay. It is not worth the journey. This is a geek history of time, where we bring nursery into the real world. As you can tell by my voice, I'm not Ed Blaylock.

I'm in fact Damian Harmony. Ed Blaylock is in temporary assignment in Tulsa, Oklahoma today. So I am Damian Harmony. I am a history teacher. Actually, I'm a Latin teacher who also teaches history on occasion. And a father of two and a pug owner. And with me tonight, I have a special guest. I am Tim Watts and I am not a teacher, but I am a nerd.

So I guess that qualifies me to be here. Also, I am a former podcaster, as well as the side comic book. I guess now I can say writer. I've always been an artist my whole life, but I'm writing a book now, so I guess I can add a writer to that. You have both written and arted comic books. I have arted. Yeah, not just to set expectations, not like Marvel DC and things like that.

Sure. I've self-published things, I've done web comics, the newest project I have is something that's in the preliminary stages that I'm getting ready to send out to publishers to see if I can get a publisher that would like to put it out for me. Awesome. Varring that I will self publish once again but I'm liking where this new project is going so I'm pretty optimistic. That's great. I definitely want to let you plug at the end of the episode so if you're okay with that. Yeah I mean we're very early on you know so the book isn't gonna be kind of at any time soon, but be happy to just give a little snippet of what it's about.

That'd be rad. Yep. Okay. Awesome. So today, we are going to talk about a comic book that turned into a movie, which is several of those have. One or two. Yeah, just a couple. So, but actually, I'm going to talk about a comic book, a turning into a movie called V for Vendetta, where the movie was actually way more popular than the comic upon their inception. Yeah, it was more of a cult thing.

I mean, Alan Moore, obviously, hugely popular. So within that genre, it was a popular book, but it wasn't anything, you know, like a dark night watchman. It didn't approach those levels. Right, at least not at first printing. And you'll see several times that there are several iterations of it. It's essentially the same story over and over again, but each time people start to grab onto it more. And then when it does become a movie, that's when people just go ape shit over it.

And it was also under the vertical imprint, if I remember correctly, which is always a smaller slice of the pie. Yes. It had a very specific readership. Yep. And I think a lot of people may have overlooked it or dismissed it because it was a vertical book

because they were into that slice, you know, the swamp things and the other things that were more darker and eccentric or esophoric. Yeah. So, no, I absolutely was one of those people. I actually honestly have not read the comic. It's a pretty large book.

It is 12 issues, I think. Yeah. 144 pages plus. But I have seen the film recently rewatched it just so I didn't make too much of a fool of myself. Well, we'll still do that. So the title of this episode is actually called V for Vendetta was overblown for its time, which makes it perfect for our time also the movie too, but in a totally different time. I like to title things like early 1800s books.

So for the listeners, V for Vendetta was, in fact, a graphic novel. It was actually a comic strip. It started off. It was a series. It was a film series. I think a 12-inch humanized series. But it was in a larger comic set prior to that. I didn't realize that. Yeah, but I came to it as a graphic novel after I saw the movie. And it was written almost right in line with the victory of Thatcherism. Now, on previous episodes, we've discussed Thatcherism, so I won't take too much steam from those. Just go back to the old episodes where Ed talked about stuff.

It debuted in 1983, and it was wildly unpopular in the anthology in which it was printed. People didn't give a shit. They just didn't. There were other things. I don't want to say a filler, but it kind of had... Doing the research, it kind of seemed to have... People will retconn their interest in it now. But it seemed to have the same interest that people had in Superman when it first came out in that anthology.

It didn't make a big splash, you know. Kind of like people say that was always into that band. Right, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like no, you didn't listen to bleach until after heart shape box, you know, and that's okay. Right. But it later got bought up by DC and they published it in color in 10 issues. Prior to that, it had not been in color. And they also got him to finish the arc, too. That was the other thing. It had been cut off. Oh, OK.

Yeah. And now you have extensive experience with comics, as far as the arting and the writing. When something is not colored, do they still ink it? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Especially back then, the early 80s, because nowadays with things being digital, there's a little bit of a gray area, sometimes they print things, well, not to go into the open-ad tangent, but back in the early 80s, you had one person that wrote the book, one person that

would do the pencil art, and another person that would do inking over top of it. I'm not necessarily because the person that penciled it could not do the finished artwork, is more for an expediency in meeting deadlines. Because if you have someone do the pencil art and then hand it off to someone else to ink it, then that first person could start working on the next story. God shit. So it was more of a for assembly line

thing about the anti-Semitism. Sure. Funny that you'd bring that up. Right, exactly. So let me ask you this then too, because I've always been curious about this. Now, when someone writes a comic Does the art come first or does the writing come first? I didn't always comes first. Okay, so he writes the dialogue You've been with the bare bones it varies from

Writer to writer what style they do it for example Everyone knows Stanley. Yeah, I'm assuming yeah, so he he developed something they called a Marvel method where he would come up with the the story for the issue No dialogue just a story and it could be an entire detailed plot or you know two or three pages There's some short I do it handed off to the artist say like Jack Kirby was a head for episode here's issue Yeah, and Jack Kirby would lay everything out He would design all the pages all the action and then when he's Stan Lee would go back in, and he would put in the dialogue balloons based on what the art looked like. Okay, so I have this idea, you produce the art, and now I'm going to write the dialogue. Right, and that's how they did it because Stan was doing every book, Marvel, did, so he made

it faster for him, which is one of the arguments that I have as an artist, as to why Jack Kirby should have more credit for creating the Marvel Universe than he's given, because sometimes Stan Lee would give him just, you know, a paragraph of, this happens this issue. And then, and then, Kirby would do everything. The fantastic for Meet God. Yeah. And that was, and that gave us Galactus.

So the whole Galactus story is like, Kirby, and it was one sentence and then, Meet God. Yeah, so, so, but I don't know a lot about Elmer's method, but I have read enough to know that he was very much different. He was very specific and meticulous and he would give specifically panel, you know, page one panel one this happens panel page one panel two this happens, okay, and it depends on the writer some of them are super meticulous About you know even to the point of doing thumbnail and stick figure sketches of I want it to look like they almost storyboarded out they almost

storyboarded out other ones are very loose and you know trust that I want to do and you know you do your thing you know with like with my book I am writing and inking the book I have a pencil that was doing it for me because I'm not good enough but I gave a one-page summerpage summary for each page and lessed up to her, how to lay out the panels. That's so pro-wrestling to me. Yeah. You're the booker and you're saying here's what the finish needs to be. Yes. And how you use many minutes.

Right. And then how you get there's up to you. And I want you to get the heat on this wrestler. Mm-hmm. And then, yeah, like with most episodes, I can bring it back to wrestling. Always. But I mean, it really is that. And my mind, that's why you're paying them. Sure.

To do that. I mean, why would I be super anal and handcuffed them? Right. You know, when they have an ability, I mean, I partnered with that person because I like what they had to do, so let them do it. Okay. But from what I recall, what I've read, Ellen Moore was very, and not surprisingly, very anal-retentive about his scripts. I do find it interesting because I know his politics.

He's an anarchist. Yeah, and so for him. But he's like a pure anachrist, not a, you know, I just don't care, man, like he actually has a philosophy behind it. Well, okay, so Ellen Moore wrote Batman Killing Joke, wrote Watchmen, he wrote Swamp Thing, a bunch of other things. He also wrote V for Vendetta, and David Lloyd illustrated it. In a reprint of all of it, David Lloyd said this about V for Vendetta. So I was reading through my reprint, you know, and he said, there aren't many cheeky, cheery characters in V for Vendetta. It's for people who don't switch off the news. Which, you know me, I love my politics in my art because it's already there.

So I'd like to just be admitting to it. I don't use my art to escape as much. Although there are times where I really would like to, but I ain't picking V for Vendetta to escape. No, you don't. No. And I can't see your brain letting you escape much. No, it really doesn't.

It sucks. But in the original DC Comics run of Vifer and Dettas, so they bought it, right? Alan Moore got to write a forward as well. And he said, Nyevte can also be detected in my supposition that it would take something as melodramatic as a near miss of nuclear conflict to nudge England toward fascism. It's night. so to give you just as a sidebar, the general plot in the comic book, and the comic is wildly different than the movie,

and we're gonna get into those differences. In the comic book, Veefer Vendetta, England goes fascist because the nuclear war misses them. And I'll get into that more, but that's a central plot point, that they didn't get hit by a nuclear war that wiped out a lot of other folk. So he says, it's 1988 now, it's five years after he wrote it. Margaret Thatcher is entering her third term of office and talking confidently of an unbroken

conservative leadership well into the next century. The tabloid press are circulating the idea of concentration camps for persons with AIDS. The new riot police were black visors as do their horses, and their vans have rotating video cameras mounted on top. The government has expressed a desire to eradicate homosexuality even as an abstract concept, and one can only speculate as to which minority will be the next legislated against. I'm thinking of taking my family and getting out of this country soon,

it's cold and it's mean spirited and I don't like it here anymore. The end of that quote, I remember that. We've got to the end, I'm like, I'll get, I remember reading it. Yeah, yeah. So that was 88. So both of these men meant for this comic to mean something.

So I feel comfortable in taking meaning from it. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And at the time, they were reacting to thatcher and what she meant for the direction of the country. And remember, it was a sharp turn right. And it was after a tumble down that the entire world had in the 70s, which had also happened similarly in the 1930s in the entire world as well.

And so I heard a comedian recently say, and his first name is Tamer, and I don't remember his last right now, but he said that his father always taught him that you should read a history book as though it's a farmer's almond-ack. Interesting. And it's really stuck with me, and these guys clearly do that. And I'm an historian, and I already did that, but I didn't know I was doing that. As Ed would say, I just now noticed the pattern on the wallpaper.

So it's taken on a whole new meeting, thatcher, and the direction of their country. And now the comic book itself, like currently, in 2019, people reading it now are going to pull wildly different meanings. And some purists are going to say that's impossible. I'm not them. I actually think that art does live in ongoing and people will pour into art per generation

what matters to them the most. Absolutely. And that's okay. And the intent of the creator may not change. Right. to them the most. Oh, absolutely. I mean, the intent of the creator may not change, but I mean, I, you know, the, the comic that I, the web comic I did before this project, was a book called The Nice Guy. And the concept was basically, there's this nice guy who has a female friend who he is infatuated with, who likes him, thinks he was a nice guy, but doesn't want to date him.

The classic stereotype. Yeah, yeah. And it came up because my roommate and I, we're both going through similar things with the girls like that. So we had this idea that's where we started to do the comic. And our intent was one thing. People took it completely differently.

And I learned, and that was an educational experience for me because this was a very long time ago. Now when was this? This was around, this was late 90s. Okay. So 20 years ago. So reality bites had come out. Yeah. And my intent was, he's just this nice guy who, you know, can't catch a break and blah, blah. And the internet was, you know, can't catch a break and blah blah. And the internet was around. Nacent, yeah. But not fully formed enough for me to get my ears blown back about my passive aggressive misogyny. And I've never seen it from that point of view.

Right. Because so many self describe nice guys are actually assholes. Right. And they think, you know, theyholes, right and they think you know They find some girl and oh you're should be so happy that I am Attention to you. I'm actually a gift to you right exactly and that was something that had an inner my mind because I Never saw it that way. I just saw it as two people one like the other one and the second one This wasn't into him right and that's kind of where it stopped

It was you know in our book the the male character never had a you should you know You should be grateful to me, but that was never part of our narrative because that's not of where it stopped. In our book, the male character never had a, you should be grateful to me, but that was never part of our narrative because that's not how we thought. But I definitely, my eyes opened, and that told me that it didn't matter what I meant when I created it. What people took from it was what they took from it, and that was their reality,

and that was, there's no incorrect way to consume art. And that was true for them. Well, let me ask you this. Given that there's no incorrect way to consume art. Sure. And that was true for them. Well, let me ask you this. Given that there's no incorrect way to consume art, you are the one who produces art. Should you, in current times, be more careful with how your message might get co-opted? When I recognize that that gets towards self-sensorship,

but it's also self-awareness. Yeah. I mean, obviously I have my own internal limits of things that I wouldn't say or wouldn't put out there just because I don't think it's appropriate, I don't think it's kind or whatever terminology you want to use. Yeah. There's things that, but I do have to say I don't like the idea and I sometimes get resentful of, oh, I had this idea, oh, yeah, well, I really can't do that, you know, or, and sometimes it is because, you know, I'm straight white male, which comes with a certain amount of, you know, baggage and concerns and, you know, reactions, you know, if I were to throw something out, people would look at it differently just because of,

I'm the one putting it out there, because it's supposed to somebody else putting it out there. It could be the exact identical message, but who is creating it is an issue, and I totally understand why that is. It's unfortunate that it is, but it's the reality that we live in. So, I mean, I do self-sensor for a lack of a better word. I mean, in the book that I'm doing now, there are certain conscious choices I made as far as the makeup of the characters, as far as how they look and who they are and things like that. But there were logical story reasons why it wasn't just because I think it should be like this

and it's not gonna do with the story. If you can do it in a way that honors the story and isn't like lip service to whatever ideology you have, that's fine. I mean, you can do whatever you want for whatever reason. Right, but I think that it's more honest if there's a logical plot driven reason why this would exist. Okay.

Yeah, I could see that. Like, there's Chris Claremont. I just saw a documentary on a streaming service who hasn't given us any money, so I'm not gonna plug them. But on a streaming service, it it says wonderful documentary Chris Claremont and one of the artists that he was that they were talking about about him with they said very often he would ask the question of is there any reason this character can't

be not white is there any reason this character can't be a woman and they would I like that question of like recognizing your default setting and being like, okay, do we need that default setting here? Does that affect the story? And so I don't consider that self-sensitivity. That's the self-awareness I see. And that's something that I did in my story also, because I said, my default and what I am used to when I grew up around is a predominantly white environment.

Of course. Not good or bad, it's just what it is. Yeah, that's what the water is swimming. Yeah. So I do think about that in my, not to jump ahead to the end of probably my book, but the setting is a post-apocalyptic setting. And the reason that I looked at the makeup of it was in that environment, survival is paramount, you don't care what someone looks like.

If they can contribute to the group's survival, you want to begin. It doesn't matter what color or gender or anything they are. If they can help, they can help. Which is why asking those questions made sense from a story standpoint. Sure.

Yeah, sure. OK. Well, 79, FATCHER in the conservative party, which was part of a larger worldwide shift from the welfare state to the right. And to understand the welfare state, it didn't used to be a bad word. It was the default setting post-World War II. Everybody left right and center believed in the welfare state because they're like, look what happened when we don't have it. And rightly so. So but she and the conservative party got elected to power in England. Okay, and it's largely that tourism is largely characterized by, and I'm going to paint with a broad brush because it's

a safe time, but it's largely characterized by populist conservatism, both economic and moral. Okay. The model is one that comes out of the ashes of libertarianism. So in the same way that current libertarians tend toward authoritarianism, that idea that that boot stamping a man in the face on a human face forever could be mine someday, is kind of what that is. I want everybody to be free to stamp faces because what if I need to stamp a face? And it's like, well, how come you've got to go there?

Why not, like, you know, go the other route, you know? But they tend to do that. And this was born of a strong authoritarian government that would stay out of business. So the thaturism, they'd stay out of business. They'd allow for privatization. They would weaken unionsization, they would weaken unions, and they would make it so that homosexuality, as a homosexuality, even

though it was legal, legally legal, like they passed a law in 1966. It was also legislatively discouraged in terms of intentional promotion. So normalizing homosexuality and any kind of sexual education classes or curricula was now legislated against. So and obviously marriage at that point was, homosexuality was legal, but whole marriage was not right. So all the tax, all the economic, adoption, things like that.

That was also not legal. Right. Yeah. Again, because they weren't a proper family, etc. It also recasts Christianity into an imminently personal salvation based on religion, right? Instead of a force for social change. And what I mean there is that God's coming back, and he's going

to rapture you if you're good enough. He's going to pluck you out of the soup. Whereas prior to that, it had been more of a secular humanism religion of God's coming back and we better get this shit right so he brings us all up together. So there's this fuck you I've got mine. Aspect of Christianity that really creeps in in the late 70s, early 80s and I really blame Anita Bryant for this. But those things are both kind of cooking together to create that tourism, or to bolster that tourism. And further, the idea of looking strong matters in that tourism,

partly because it's a woman who's prime minister, so she's got to be hawkish. There is a layer of that. In fact, they called her old iron pants, which I used to joke on Call of Duty that there was an Iron Pants patch or achievement where you could not get shot from behind, and it was the Thatcher patch.

But now as a former empire, England wanted to look strong still, right? And that meant military might, which means that you need to reestablish England as a major military player in a world that hadn't seen superpowers do very well in the previous decade. In the 1960s and 70s, were the decades of America failing in Southeast Asia and Russia going, oh, we should try that and failing in Central Asia.

They were in the middle of failing at this point. They were still failing. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, so they're right. They just started. Yeah, because I got 82, 83, I think. This is 79 they invaded. They were there until 89. Till Rambo got them out. Yeah, you knew he would.

It will. And in fact, in Rambo 3, in the crest, it actually thanks the tally band. Oh, yeah, he fights with our buddies. Yeah, you know, oh, so. The tally band. Well, we did train them. So it's fair.

Fair enough. And he hauled a dead goat into the goal post. The Taladin. Well, we did train them, so it's fair. Fair enough, yeah. And he hauled a dead goat into the goalposts. I don't get that version of Quidditch, but whatever, you know, it's fine. But, so yeah, like I said, the US just finished losing Vietnam. US-Sazaar was on its way to a loss in Afghanistan. Perfect time to puff your chest out, right?

And lead to an eventual war against penguins in the South Atlantic. Right. So, this is the soup in which Alan Moore was sitting when he wrote Vivindetta. Now, I just want to show you this quick aside. This is a panel from Vivindetta and I just there we go. Here it is. Sorry, technical difficulties. The trouble is with my set. Please read what that says. This is Mr. Carell went on to say that it is the duty of every man in this country to seize the initiative and make Britain great again.

It's 1983. How fucking precious. Fun fact, in 1983, Margaret Thatcher's government failed to properly fund the NHS. I'm just going to say that again, they failed to properly fund the NHS, the National Health Service, their version of human health services that we have. They failed to properly fund it so that it could get its own blood supply up. Thousands of hemophiliox got infected blood that had HIV or hep-c in it because the NHS had to go on the open market, get the lowest bitter, and ended up with the supply of

clotting factor 8 that wasn't nearly regulated enough. So they found somebody who didn't screen their blood? Yay, capitalism. Because again, they had to go to lowestitter when you are a government entity and you're directed to go Lowes Bitter, you got to, well, they didn't fund them enough to be able to get, yeah. So yeah. So the comic strip strip was initially, and again, it was a strip.

It was like, you know, maybe as big as Blondie, you know, or it, no, I take it back. It was bigger than that because it, you're right. It's a recall curriculum. no, I take it back. It was bigger than that because it, you're right. It was a recall correctly. The British anthologies, it might have been like four or five stories in one issue and maybe he did it in like four, four, six page chunks. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't, it wasn't quite Sunday. It wasn't full issues, like, like, we know. It wasn't Mark Trail. You know, it wasn't, you know, Dennis the Minnes. Yeah. Mark Trail. Or really? It wasn't, you know, Dennis the Minnes. Yeah, Mark Trio. Or really?

So, uh, Vaseline Alley. Yeah. Actually, you know, I remember reading Spider-Man comics and going, why am I reading three panels at a time? Yeah. This is stupid. Yeah.

So, but it was not popular in 1983, but when it was published about five years later by DC, they picked it up. It picked up steam. The basic plot of the preventative of the comic book is that the fascist government, which is called Norse fire. Oh wow. Yeah, I just that's not iring at all. No. Well, I just pointed out because nowadays certain white dudes are really getting into the idea of like Odin worship. Oh wow, I didn't okay. Uh-huh. And it's like

the story. I like I like Ragnarok as much as the next guy. Yeah and that's the thing is they're they're only coming. I didn't really. Oh well that's a side that we talk about. But they're coming they're coming to it now and being verbal about it now which is weird since it's such an ancient religion. Yeah but yeah it's taken over England in the shadow of the nuclear holocaust that just missed England, right? So in the 1980s and 70s, that was a very real fear that people had. I don't 100%.

V is an anarchist, specifically an anarchist. He is cast as such. We'll get into the movie later. But this sets the tale to be between two very extreme political philosophies, fascism and anarchism, literally polar opposites. The story is that he is essentially an avatar for anarchism, a movement unto himself, who seeks to push back against the fascism that took root in England in the late 1990s, because it's set, of course it's set.

It's always set, but about a generation set. It's always set. About a generation later. Yeah. He does it through terrorism and murder. I mean, straight up terrorism and murder. He also tortures an underage sex worker into having an existential crisis. Yeah, that character. She's a sex worker in the 60s.

That's gonna make it look good. And she comes out of it stronger for having been tortured by the way Yay, it's very niche and Eventually story ends in the chaos that Vistarrism has caused with the government devouring itself to close the book Like there's there's a coup at the top level and there's a lot of assassinations Now it's clear that the comic meant something to Alan Moore. He wrote it right He struck at the power structure in place in Britain And he has been virantly against their overreach

since writing the comics. At the time, he wrote it from a perspective of anarchists versus fascists, and what that presented. And he, well, I'll give you the quote in a second. And Fatcher was facing her first real crisis at the same time that he wrote this, actually. Her wave of popularity was waning. I find this interesting because there's

going to be a parallel across the pond. She'd been in power a couple years, and there were riots in places where there hadn't been in years. According to Moore, quote, there were fascist groups, the national front, the British national party, who were flexing their muscles and sort of trying to make political capital

out of what were fairly depressed and jobless times. Just point out that farmers all men acts very often will do stuff like this. It seemed to me that with the kind of Reagan thatcher axis that existed across the Atlantic, it looked like Western society was taking somewhat a turn for the worst. And again, I'm pulling apart from his quote for a second.

Reagan and Thatcher had a famous relationship in terms of agreeing ideologically. What's interesting though is that Thatcher was once asked, I think, off the record about Reagan. And she said, he's a very nice man. He just has nothing between his ears. A useful idiot, if you will. So they're back to Moore's quote, there were ugly fascist stains starting

to reassert themselves that we might have thought had been eradicated back in the 30s, but they were reasserting themselves with a different spin. They were talking less about annihilating whichever minority they happened to find disfavor with and talking more about free market forces and market choices and all of these other kinds of glib terms which tended to have the same results as an awful lot of these kind of fascist causes back in the 1930s but with a bit more spin put upon them the friendly face of fascism. Does this sound at all like people

that got punched on camera, or at all like several other people who have had their own platforms, and then subsequently been de-platformed after they let it all out? So now this is 81, right, that he's talking about. And the fascination with bandits and outlaws is a very British thing, especially dashing villains. Hi, women.

Yeah, it's so much higher in Britain to love that kind of stuff, right? Well, they had the original, though, G. Robin Hood. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And this combines with Alan Moore's desire to fast forward about his generation, or about a generation, which is a pretty standard writers tool like I said and to see what would and could happen if that tourism was allowed to continue its logical march forward based on his of course political leaning right

his right is looking at this may or may not be yeah it is a possible outcome I don't know if I would say the logical outcome yeah I would say it is a possible outcome. I don't know if I would say the logical outcome. Yeah, I would say it is a possible logical outcome. Yes, is it the only one? No, it is. There are competing forces. It's not out of right field and completely wacky to think that it could go that way. Exactly. Especially now where we are. So now we've already seen similar sci-fi in the same era in England with Warhammer 40K. There's a wonderful episode about it. It's episode three. England seems to like dashing villains way more than Americans do. And in fact, we import dashing villains from England. Although from the Old West's genre, there definitely is a romanticism of the outlaw. The outlaw, but not the villain.

The outlaw comes into right the wrongs. He's usually going against the power stress. Well, Jesse James really didn't write wrongs and know but people in Missouri thought he did. Right and that's what I'm saying. You know it's it's a very similar thing where the the villain and Britain is a group of people that feels he's doing something. Oh I see that saying I see. Just like in the United States. Yeah. The robber that whatever. I'm gonna say there's a similar that it's kind of like a homegrown version, but again, not as popular.

Right, yeah. Well, in England, you get to have a full-on villain still be fascinating to the British. Like Jack the Ripper is a really good example. Right, they loved him, you know. We didn't love Charlie Manson. No, but we were fascinated. Fascinated, very smart, segment, the equally fascinating.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and. But I do think there's a difference in kind of there. And I have taken the Jack the Ripper tour or what I was in England a couple months ago. Not much less, but still fun. Sure, sure. Absolutely. So Viproventetta was still very much a British phenomenon as a result.

So here's another quote that kind of backs that up. There's a lot of quotes I got here. Quote, so it all evolved from several different sources. But it was playing into the fact that over here in England, we've got quite a good tradition of villains and sociopaths as heroes, as you were saying. Like Robinhood, Guy Fox and all the rest of them. I'm going to stop there because Ed is going to be screaming at this podcast when he hears it. Guy Fox was not a hero in any way. He's batshit crazy. He was a regressivist. And also one thing I would throw into what would make one of the reasons I think that they

reprinted or collected Veefam and Deda exactly when they did, because then it came out and you said 88. The DC reprint, yeah. Well two years before, Washington was released. Oh, yeah. And Washington was phenomenally popular and introduced Alan Moore to the American public. So, I think what they did is they scrambled to find something

with his name on it to put out. Okay, yeah, I don't doubt that. Kind of like what certain comic labels do. And it'll kind of like, or, and after a hit and becomes big, and the movie they made five years ago, this bell on the shelf doing nothing that they're a third bill on, also, they're five years ago to spell on the shelf and we know that there

are a third bill on the lead and they're on the front of the video of OX and... Lepican three after friends. Exactly. So holy crap. So back to Alan Moore. And in our fiction, the British children's comics, there were as many sociopathic villains

who'd got their own comic strips as their were heroes. Now, he's distinguishing. Possibly more, the British have always had sympathy with a dashing villain. I would point out, because Britain was the dashing villain for the world for so many generations. They did horrible things, but look good doing it. So, Moor's Pimperno, for example, there you go. Moor's political thinking led to his art being the way it was, obviously. Quote, as far as I'm concerned, the two polls of politics were not left-wing or right-wing.

In fact, they're just two ways of ordering an industrial society, and we're fast moving beyond the industrial societies of the 19th and 20th centuries. It seemed to me that the more absolute extremes were anarchy and fascism, and so doing more kind of both sides is it I think because he's saying that They're two equal poles and I'm like now there's one that wants to exterminate people and there's another that will use violence to defend itself And those are very different things and the Spanish Civil War kind of proved that in the 30s So I don't know how into anarchism he was at that time or how much study of fascism he'd done at that time? Of course, the question I would ask is how extreme in the fascist is in anarchism to the point where everything's a threat

So the violence is more widespread. Well as I mean I will defend myself, but you know It's going back to ancient Rome, which you know is a very well Sure, you know every ward even the wars we start are wars of defense because we believe you're going to attack us. So we're going to do it first, but we're just defending ourselves. No, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. Actually anarchists who do their homework essentially, they're pacifists who are willing to fight when attacked,

or who are willing to fight if fascists show up. But other than that, they're like, nah dude, you do you. Like, I'm gonna be over here if you wanna help me. That's great. And if you don't, that's cool. Like there are no centralized government. I'm not really.

Yeah, very, my ignorance and anarchists is deep. And I don't wanna speak for them fully, but yeah, centralized government less so The idea that we're all in this together is still there though, right? No, no real like centralized infrastructure services things like that Yeah, and see that's the problem with having an anarchism in a post-industrial society is that you've already got the infrastructure Now you kind of have to keep it up. Yeah, yeah, you have to maintain it and yeah, and also I mean you've gotten the point where

because you're even just realized you have role specialization in where you don't necessarily have people that can go off on their farm and do everything they need to do to do to the end. Well, anarchism isn't necessarily, and again, not gonna speak too much for it, but anarchism isn't necessarily a rural frontierism either. Right, I just announced that I was using it

where our society has evolved to the point where there are people that I can do this one task and I can't do any of the other things. I can't feed myself. That's why I do this one thing. I can get the money to go and feed myself. Anarchism, the anarchist that I know would say, what are you doing with money?

Like anarchists that I know, they're like, no, dude, Star Trek, That's the ultimate goal of anarchism Which is fascinating to me and it's not something I'm qualified to discuss, but there is I get it like so because capitalism is the problem So not like pure is purest communism? I mean communism in its final state not that not in between thing that right Union right right the ultimate where there is no state. Yeah, yeah. Where we're all people who just automatically do whatever needs to be done. Yeah, which I think is an incredibly naive.

To be in. I will certainly say it's utopian. Right, but yeah, I guess I'm too much of a cynic. Yeah, that's fair. To believe that people need motivation to do things. Yeah, I don't know. The starvation needs to be it though. No, no, I know I don't expect it.

And that's good, yeah. But also when you get a certain point where, the basic subsistence needs are met. Right. You know, some people just innately in their who they are will work just as hard, whether they get something or not yep some people won't and we have enough machines now that take care of that could probably do a better job of and take care of and we don't need

some statement yeah yeah for sure um so yeah it's so uh... and and and he even says the same he says why i was trying to do was to take these two extremes of the human political spectrum, set them against each other in a kind of little moral drama, just to see what works and what happened. I tried to be as fair about it as possible. I mean, yes, politically I'm an anarchist.

At the same time, I didn't want to stick to just moral blacks and whites. I wanted a number of fascists that I portrayed to be real rounded characters. They've got reasons for what they do. They're not necessarily cartoon Nazi. And here's where hearing eye disagree. He saw fascism creeping in and thought, yeah, but what about if we make people afraid of anarchists instead of just talking about how bad fascists are? Now I see it creeping in and I think, hey, let's

worry about everything else later. And he didn't do that. And to me, the bacteria count for fascism is way too high to ignore. So it's time for antibiotics. In his comic, he very much does do that though. He well rounds those characters. They are fascinating characters. He does do diligence with them. And he kind of cartoonizes anarchism. It's interesting. And I kind of get that, you know, you'll go broader in terms of more anarchist characters beyond V. Not really. Not really. The ones who do become anarchist characters are people who are just kind of following that avatar. Okay. So interestingly, he objected strongly to the deafening of fascism and fascists in the movie version, too.

Well, he objected to anything that he did be a main do movie. Yeah, well, and that was partly because he got burned by Lee Rick's story in the generalment. But also, he's like, no, you took the teeth out of the fascists in that movie. Because it went in hard against the queer community, but not at all about race. Right, and he made it, almost, he's in the film version, it felt to me more like a theocracy, yeah, then fascism.

Right. I mean, there is a nod toward Islam too. There is a nod. They mention it twice, along with being queer twice, but there's nothing actually about race. And he, Alan Moore, didn't like them doing that in the movie because racial purity is such a tent pole of fascism. Right, they go with more unity, which could be seen as purity, of course. Right, but they don't come out and say that in the movie.

Yeah. But they did make a big deal about strength of unity, unity, unity, and peace. You can say, yep, yeah, exactly. And that along with the, you know, Islam and homophobia, you know, is why I saw it as much more, like I said, as a theocracy, then a fascist government, which, you know, historically haven't really been real big into religious institutions. With institutions because it's competition. Yeah, exactly. They are the cult of personality.

They are the Godhead. Right. Now, I would say that one of the things I liked about the movie was that it was so generically fascist. To me, that was good. Like it was good to do that because it generalized it so that anything that that resembled that could get plugged into that. But I understand the objections. Better as far as a convention to use in the film. Right, and now we're getting into how people consume art. But you know, the way it was presented in the film, do you think it made it broader and easy for people

to insert their experience into it? I think so. And consume it? I think so. Okay. At the same time, though, several of my friends objected to it as such. Well, yeah.

And also, because they left out some of the things, it closes off a dialogue or conversation about certain aspects. Yeah, that's true. Now he was, I still think he was willing to both sides it, both extremes, but he also never horseshoes, which I really like. Now, horseshoe philosophy is anarchism and fascism are just as bad as the other. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

And it's because, you know, if you're a part of a part of it, then she'll meet again. Right. That's the horseshoe, right? He still sees fascism as a very viable threat. Now, I'm going to show you a couple panels dealing with that. Dr. Reid again?

Yes. And then you get to scroll as well. So this is the main character who in the book was called Adam Susan in the movie was called Adam Sutler. Go ahead. OK. The Romans invented fascism.

The bundle of bound twigs was a symbol. One twig could be broken, a bundle would prevail. Fascism strength in unity. Go ahead and scroll. Inside with training. I believe in strength, I believe in unity. And if that strength, that unity of purpose demands a uniformity of thought, work, and deed, then so be it.

I will not hear talk of freedom. I will not hear talk of individual liberty. They are luxuries. I do not believe in luxuries. The war put paid to luxury. The war put paid to freedom. Let's go directly back to the conversation of what do you want freedom or security. Right. Now what I really like is also just this imagery used. Here, V is talking to the people. This is what you said in the movie where he's sitting down and having the fireside chat. Right.

Tied into the TVP. Exactly. Now this, we'll get into what he says in a little bit, but if you notice who he's got up in the far left corner is Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini. Right. Just straight up like the top three. Yeah. Yeah. far left, a far left corner is Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini. Like just straight up like... The top three.

Yeah. Yeah. Despite them being wildly different philosophically, one of these kids is doing his own thing. Stalin's not the fascist. But they're all authoritarians. And that's an easy bleeder. It's easy to put them all in the same bucket.

Right. Now, maybe I prefer my anti-fascist polemics to be more polemic. That is a fair criticism of me, I think that most people could love me. I was disappointed by Alan Moore's efforts, to be honest, and they missed me completely in his comic book. I saw fascism as the BBEG. So it's the big bad evil guy. And

therefore anyone seeking to disrupt that was automatically an ally. So this idea that like, well, we really want to make you question if the anarchists are right. No, he's right. You know, well, he blew up a thing with people. Yeah, and a fascist system. You got to do that sometimes. You know, you want to make an omelet. Yeah, you got to scramble some eggs. We bombed the shit out of Dresden. And that's not good. But to me, it was like, no, if you're disrupting, seeking to disrupt fascism, you're

an automatic ally of liberty. You might not be one we want to hang with after. But you'll get us there. Regardless. See a previous comment of Joseph Stalin. Exactly. Exactly. Because in terrorizing a population,

he's terrorizing a population that has become complicit in the disappearance and violence toward large swaths of that population. So these people never did anything against anyone. You have a they absolutely co-signed silently by their complicity, the violence against people who are then marginalized and then nobody thought about them. I just finished watching Man in the High Tower. I'm not a castle.

High Castle, that. And I don't want to give spoilers because it's streaming service. Real totally recent. Yeah. But there is a wonderful discussion that was had between two of the female characters in it, discussion that was had between two of the female characters in it about whether or not they even paid attention to what happened and why they didn't. And it's really, that to me got to the moral crux of what it means to live in a society that is built on that without acknowledging that.

And you know, maybe it's because I'm an historian and I'm living in America, and I lived in the South for a while, and, and, and, and. Right. But, so another quote by him, and the central question is this, is this guy right, or is he mad? What do you, the reader, think about this? What struck me, which struck me as properly anarchist solution?

I didn't want to tell the people what to think. I just wanted to tell the people to think and to consider some of these admittedly extreme little elements, which nevertheless do recur fairly regularly throughout human history. I was very pleased with how it came together and it was a book that was very, very close to my heart. But I also would argue as a creator that, you know,

I'm not telling you what to think. Yeah, but conscious, or unconscious, you are framing it in a certain way and you are presenting your argument and not that he was being deceptive in anything. And I think as a creator, you can't help but present your point of view. Absolutely. You know, so you're saying that he wrote an accidental anecdote or an accidental allegory? Because that's what we came to with Tolkien. Was that?

And it's kind of an overriding theme in this show is that our theory on tent doesn't mean shit because you did it even if you didn't mean to do it. Like any piece of art is a snapshot of the time that it was created in. Absolutely. And so Tom can create an allegory without meaning to. And he deliberately set out to not create an allegory. He created an allegory. And like what you've been talking about right now with Watchman, when it was created versus today, you know, that piece of work is a static creation of art. Yeah. That means a completely different, not completely,

but it means it means different things today than it did a long time ago completely different, not completely, but it means different things today than it did a long time ago. Yeah, well, because when it was first created, it was about the Cold War and nuclear threat. I mean, the, the, the, the doom clock, the new state clock, all that. I mean, it was the Afghanistan thing. It was a theme that more likes, right, right, the clock. Well, because he was, and that was just water, he was swimming in. Right. And whereas now it's been updated to be about race relations, which is its own doomsday clock. So, yes, I think so.

The difference there is that the property is being updated. It's being altered. It's being changed. I'm going to borrow the term from Turner, colorized on some level. But I think that that's okay because it's keeping the same tone. And I would argue that... And it's changed media. A thoral intent does matter as far as

retroactively condemning the author. Oh, okay. Yeah. Because... Because you have to look at the time of which they... You can reach some of these. Having no idea what the fallout will be. Okay.

You know, a generation from now they can look at the time and which date is it. You have no idea what the fallout will be. Okay. You know, a generation from now, they can look at it completely differently. Yeah. And, you know, go, oh, what an asshole that guy is. I mean, you know, if you look at the American Civil War and the American Civil War and the American Civil Proclamation, the vast majority of people that support

it, by today's standards, would be horrific racists. Yeah. But yet, they voted for the slaves. That's true. You know, so I think that context, time of origin, and intent matter to a degree. But I think that art lives beyond the creator and becomes almost always becomes something completely unintended. Okay, yeah, I would agree with that.

I think it's okay to go back and kind of evaluate the times in which they live. Sure. And they are a, I don't want to overuse a word avatar, but they are emblematic of the time in which they lived. I think that's absolutely true. And criticizing it on that level, I think is okay. Right. Recognizing, though, though that for instance John Brown was probably the only white guy in America who saw himself as an equal to

black people at that time in the 1850s. Quite possible. And he was just I mean dragged for years for generations until recently he's been really updated. I think that's a good thing that we're capable of doing that, as historians and as people who consume art. I think it's terrible that at that time, literally the only guy who thought he was equal to people who had different skin color than him was the one willing to take up a broadsword to go and fix it.

I mean, good on him, bad on the rest of them. Right, and I'm sure I know a limited amount about John Brown, but I would assume that if we dug into his life, there probably would be things about him by today's standards that would, you know, be condemned. Yeah, absolutely. And which is exactly my point that it's fine to look at something and I agree. You look at it in the context of when it was created or when the person lived with the understanding that yes, in this time period, this person was progressive for their time, not by our standard. We don't agree with a lot of the other things they did, but there's one thing it was a huge

accomplishment in that time for them to do this thing. Yes. No, I'm with you there. I mean, so all this terror that Vee's committing, he's blowing up buildings, he's this fascinating key party members. Again, I'm talking only about the comic. This is in the backdrop of something called the Troubles. This is a fight in Ireland to get the British out

of Northern Ireland. Okay, so they actually used that, okay, because when you said the Troubles, I'm like, oh, like Ireland, know that literally, he's talking of Northern Ireland. Okay, so they actually used that, okay, because when you said the trouble, I'm like, oh, like Ireland, know that literally he's talking about Northern Ireland. Well, he's not saying that it's not called something that wasn't that, but he called the troubles? No, no, what I'm saying though is that he's creating art at the time that the troubles are happening.

Okay, so of course, blowing up buildings, assassinating key party members. Everything going on in Bill Fass? Exactly. Those are tools that his character can use because that's what's going on. Just like in every Marvel and Avengers movie, there's a 9-11 moment. Why? Because 9-11 is a part of our social fabric now, right? Yeah. Buildings topple, shit falls, stuff like that. It's almost, you can argue it's almost equivalent to like a hack joke. Or the Cheat Pup. Yeah. Is it bringing a backup to wrestling? cheap pop. Yeah, it's a pretty good pop. To have a wrestling.

Yeah, you know, it's an easy emotional core of a strike. Exactly. Or also in wrestling, something called cheap heat. So we're a bad guy needs to get the audience to boo him. So there's ways to do that. You can fight a certain way and then you get the audience over. Automatically, right. Or you can just spit on the good guy

okay and then it was and and that's cheap heat right that's what are you doing you have no imagination but yeah that's that's your hack joke yeah so the problem was not everyone wanted the British out of Northern Ireland it was an ethno religious struggle which again I'm gonna paint with broad brushes here because it saves time but it had a lot to do with identity in Ireland and the long time oppression by the British on Ireland. Okay. A friend of mine was hitchhiking through Europe at the time because that's the thing you used to get to do and he went to a bar somewhere in Ireland.

I don't remember where and I'm going to do my best worst. Republic Ireland? Could have been. I don't know. No, I'm not sure because I'm not sure. But I know that he might have actually said, bell fast. Yeah, so he shows up in a bar and somebody asks him,

are you a Catholic or are you a Protestant? And he says, I'm an atheist. I'm like, oh, that's fine. But are you a Catholic or a Protestant atheist? That shit mattered. Oh, absolutely. So the IRA set off a bomb killing a famed admiral and a relative of the royal family, Lord Mountbatten in 1979.

18 British paratroopers were killed by remote-denonated car bombs, or not car bombs, but remotely-denonated bombs on the same day. That was, I believe, the Disco Tech bombing. In 1981, the Irish hunger strikes took place. 10 Irish prisoners went on hunger strike. Bobby Sands was the first one to die. He's the one that makes all the papers. Afterwards, Libya sent them aid. That's right. Because Libya was pissed at Thatcher for helping Reagan bomb Kadoffi's country, right? Kadoffi was pissed and kind of understandably so it killed his kid. Did, right.

So, and yeah. Right, and gonna make an omelette. Yeah, exactly. So, the difference though between anarchist violence and fascist violence, anarchist violence is coming from underneath. Yeah, but it's the most more organized. Oh, yes. Absolutely.

This bombs will drop on time. Right. So, also in 1981, Reagan gets shot by John Hinckley. So why we don't know John Hinckley's middle name because he didn't succeed. Interesting. Hadn't thought that one through, but I see where you're going. Right, right, you're right.

I don't know his middle name and every single, everybody else, you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, at least in the 1900s. And the 1800s Charles Gatoel, well're right. I don't know his middle name and every single, everybody else, you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, at least in the 1900s, and the 1800s Charles Gatot, well, no, I guess it kind of bounced back and forth. But anyway, John Hinckley was trying to impress Jodie Foster because he'd seen her in performance in taxi driver a few years prior,

and she was 13 at the time, and now she's 17, and he's super obsessed with impressing her. Quote, I'm quoting John Hinckley, over the past seven months, I've left you dozens of poems, letters, and love messages, and the faint hope that you could develop and interested in me. Although we talked on the phone a couple of times, I never had the nerve to simply approach you and introduce myself. The reason I'm going ahead with this attempt now is because I cannot wait any longer to impress you Just poke on the phone. Yeah, it was a different time Yeah, well, I think he called her and she's like this creepy as fuck down or that there was a tracing that happened

I don't remember but the ingenuity of stalkers back then. Yeah, I don't I just the back end of compliment Yeah, yeah, because pre-internet to find out those things about someone. Yeah, that takes dedication Yeah, well, you know when our would-be assassins do it. They're creepy as fuck. Yeah, because pre-internet to find out those things about someone that takes dedication. Yeah. Well, you know when our would be assassins do it They're creepy as fuck. Yeah, you know When the Irish do it, there's a political reason Well, yeah, well, in their mind. It's not terrorism. They're They're they're fighting a war. Yeah, you know because they have brigades and they have commanders and I mean they have a military structure Absolutely. Yeah, and they have brigades and they have commanders and I mean they have a military structure. Absolutely. Yeah.

And they're fighting a military structure. Yeah. But soon after his trial, John Hinckley wrote that the shooting was quote, the greatest love offering in the history of the world. And it was disappointed that Jody Foster didn't reciprocate his love. Wow. I get why people rail quickly against the nice guy motif. No, I do, I do too.

Again, I was naive in my position because, again, not the pool I swam in. And once someone poured it out to me, I was like, oh, right. I can see that. Yeah. And I see it more. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like, well, the dick-knife guy has become the in-sell. Yes.

I, there was a comedian. I want to say it was Jokeesoniel. But it was somebody. He said that, you know what, it's, the world's gotten so topsy-turvy that nerds are the dangerous ones and the jocks are actually the good ones because the jocks are the ones taking a knee or going out there and criticizing the government or raising their fist at the Olympics and the nerds are the ones that are shooting up schools and churches and shit like that.

And it's so uncomfortable. Yeah, but it's so uncomfortably true in those broad strokes. I'm like, oh shit, it's nerds. What are you doing? It's also one of the things where the oppressor become the oppressor, right? Because culturally, the nerds are in the ascendancy. And nerd culture is the dominant culture. Yep.

And the nerds have the wealth, and with wealth. Yeah. And they still have that shadow of the drive of I want some payback. Right. Which which is always a concern when an oppressed party gets in gets in a position of power. There's that risk of, you know, I don't necessarily want equal. But to me, equal is, you know, equal time. You know, but to me equal is equal time. I was shit on for a while. Equality is you being shit on for a while until I decide that the debt's been paid. Right. No one can come doing a remit on that.

I would point out though the only times that I've actually seen that happen are when it was the Treaty of Versailles or yeah really or you're seeing uh yeah I'm not saying it happens with any of you layered no no I'm saying that you know it's almost like a projected fear like it seems to be only white folk who are afraid of that happening well it well also it's because white folks have been the ones in power right you know but but like I said you yeah yeah to a small degree I think you could make the argument that we're seeing that with the quote unquote nerd or tech or whatever culture is. They do have a lot of, a lot more power than they did, you know, 30 years ago. Yeah. You know, having grown up and been a nerd of a certain age, sure, sure. You know, to this day, you know, still people tell me, you know, as a single guy going

to, you know, trying to meet people, don't tell them you're into comic books. Oh, Jesus. Because that generation is still, you know, my generation and older is still the mind of, that's a negative thing. Right. Or is it like, have you seen the billions of dollars of comic books that made for people now?

Right, you know, so, but yeah, you're right. And you see things like the, you know, inside of Google where they're saying, you know, bad things are, you know, all kinds of, you know, men behaving badly. Yep. Oh, absolutely. And that's supposed're saying, you know, bad things are, you know, all kinds of, you know, men behaving badly. Yep. You know, absolutely. And that's supposed to be, you know, you know, the whole, we've been, you know, picked

on and, you know, now we, we're not picked on anymore. Yay, but you know, you just pick somebody else to pick on. Yeah. Yeah. You know, hold the ladder up after you. Right. And then you hit people with it. Like you're a dick.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the unfortunate, that's where my cynicism about human nature comes into play. I could get that. I could see that. You know, you get, you know, you, and I think that's the unfortunate that's where my cynical my cynicism about human nature comes into play I could get that where you know you get you know You you lack the power for a long time and you got a little bit and you know You kind of got drunk on the the field. Yeah, no, I understand that concern. I understand that fear I just look at it historically. It's like right practically Practically no, yeah, and I don't know that I don't think it would happen

societal society why. No, I mean, it could be isolated instances. Exactly. Yeah. So Reagan incidentally, when he got shot, he got hit by a sheer dumb luck. Oh yeah. Yeah, because Hinckley would have missed entirely, except for there was this one secret service agent who had perfect timing. He grabbed Reagan and rushed him into the limo, like you're supposed to. And one of the bullets, this guy was so on it and his speed and his asidiousness,

put Reagan right in the path of the only bullet that had a chance of hitting Reagan. Is everything else hit other? Yes, it's in. It's in. It's in. It's in.

It's in. It's in. It's in. It's in. It's in. It's in. It's in. It's in.

It's in. It's in. It's in. It's in. It's in. It's in. It's in. It's in the president's chest. So if the secret service had not done their job, Reagan would have been fine. And here's where it gets really weird. Reagan gets a lot of sympathy. And people were already not liking him after he got elected. And he was like looking at a long three years, right? He charmed the

shit out of everyone at the hospital. Oh, yeah, the joke about the surgeon, or you a Democrat. Yeah, I sure hope some of you are Republicans. Right. And that's one thing he absolutely knew how to do. It was charming mother father. Absolutely. Which he used that charmingness to silent students

who were protesting against him that he was fucking over. Like, there's, I'm not a fan of this man. But he basically locked in his second term alongside his tougher new image as a result of this, too. He survived the bullet. He took the bullet for the country. Exactly. Right.

So in August, when he enforced a law that nobody thought he would against the air traffic controllers in their strike, everyone was on board with him busting that union. He broke that union and like, he's not the first one to do any union breaking, but he really cranked it up to the point where unions have been declining ever since then. All of this because he survived being shot and was charming. Now, 1982, the Disco Tech bombing at the drop in well killed 11 British soldiers and six civilians

So that's I mixed that up with the 81 In 1984 that your herself escaped an assassination by sheer dumb luck The next day she was a fucking badass she really was and she spoke as scheduled basically telling the IRA come at me I'm here, right This made her wildly popular and it was a scheduled, basically telling the IRA, come at me. I'm here, right? This made her wildly popular, and it was a bombing, I believe, that had won a right. Made her wildly popular after facing a lot of trouble in her initial election, and halfway through a coalminer strike, she got a lot of support due to how bad she looked. So this is the backdrop of really fucking scary violence that these

right-wing libertarian branded populist cryptofascists end up gaining popular support and they're for more power in too. I'm not saying you should kill these leaders at all. They were duly elected individuals, they get to be in charge, you need to do a better job. But if you're going to shoot in charge, you need to do a better job. Oh, who you pick? But if you're gonna shoot at them, you fucking will better hit them, because if you don't, they're going to use that, and they're going to ascend and break all the unions

apparently, because that's what Tatcher did, and that's what Reagan did. In V for Vendetta, they're already in charge, okay? And their popularity isn't any longer a question, because they have all the authority. They have the power. Now, the comic book has an excellent answer to this, really. V has a fireside chat of sorts, and I'm

going to show you that picture again, on the National News Channel, which can't get shut off because fascism. And in it, he says the following things. And I'm going to show you the pictures. Which is great for our listing audience. Yes, it's a visual medium. Right.

Okay, we're back to the... I'll go ahead and read it to you, though. Okay, so, but as you can see, you've got him with the three dictators and people watching out long at home. And then he is continuing to talk, and as people are storming the building. Right. And he keeps and as people are storming the building. Right. And he keeps talking as they're storming the building, keeps talking. There's still people watching this on the TV and yeah, and that's where we will stop on that.

Now, here's what the text all says. And it's no good blaming the drop and work. He does this as a, we're having your yearly review. Okay. Okay. And so he carries on this metaphor of talking to you as though you are a worker, and he is your supervisor. He says, and it's no good blaming the drop in work standards

upon bad management either, though to be sure the management has been very bad. In fact, let us not mince words. The management is terrible. We've had a string of embezzlers, frauds, liars, and lunatics making a string of catastrophic decisions. This is plain fact, but who elected them? It was you. You who appointed those people. These people. You who gave them the power to make your decisions for you. And while I'll admit that anyone can make a mistake once, to go on making the same lethal errors century after century seems to mean nothing short of deliberate.

This is the anarchist in him. You have encouraged these malicious incompetence who have made your working life a shambles. You have accepted without question their senseless orders. You have allowed them to fill your workspace with dangerous and unproven machines. You could have stopped them. All you had to say was no. You have no spine, you have no pride, you are no longer an asset to the company. And then the action picks up and so on. That's Alan Moore talking to Britain. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. 100%. He is pissed. Yeah. That is definitely not him saying, I'm not telling you what to think. No, I'm just saying think. Yeah, I call bullshit Yeah, because he's absolutely telling them what yeah, and that that art. I liked you know because he's telling he's he's just putting out there

Right, but he's pissed at England because he sees the election of thatcher is the first step toward totalitarianism And did you know that a lot of you saw the recent news story, he actually voted. Yes. For the first time in, I don't know, decades. Yeah, yeah, I have that article actually. Yeah, that's part of the epilogue. Okay, but didn't mean to jump in. No, no, I don't mind. And now here's his strongest case against them, right? He doesn't both sides it here.

He calls it out. And you remember from the beginning, I have taken, be detected in my supposition that it would take something as melodramatic as a near miss, nuclear conflict to nudge England toward fascism is 1988 now. Margaret Thatcher is entering her third term of office and talking confidently of an unbroken conservative leadership all into the next century. The tabloid press are circulating the idea of concentration camps for a person with AIDS.

This should sound familiar because I read it earlier. The new riot police were black visors as do their horses and their vans have rotating video cameras mounted on top which you saw in the movie. The government has expressed the desire to eradicate homosexuality even as an abstract concept and one can only speculate as to which minority will be the next legislated against. I'm thinking of taking my family and getting out of this country soon. It's cold and it's mean spirited. And I don't like it here anymore. That's a nice version of what he said in his comic book,

half a decade earlier, which I just read to you. And that's why I put them right next to each other. Now, I talked about a sex worker who's underage that V tortures into an existential crisis, one that ultimately frees her to choose freedom. That's all the metaphor for what anarchism has to do to England, to thoroughly purge itself of fascism. Anything else would be inauthentic and allowed to creep back in.

Like I said, you've got to take your antibiotics for the full course. And yet again in a more polite and smartly dressed tone, just like Margaret Thatcher, she's more polite, smartly dressed, fascism, but she's fascism nonetheless, or she's the first step toward it in more's eyes. Or someone else with a nice suit and tie and easy smile who lets you think that other people are the problem. No, the only solution is an anguishing, abandoned, and despairing, authentic choice. True existentialism leads you to anarchism. The British electorate must suffer because they brought this on themselves.

They must make the choice for themselves, which he says you should have said no. And they must realize that with both choices, whether you say no or whether you say yes, will come pain. And only then can they, the electorate, the British electorate, truly choose what's best for them. There's your anarchism. And with that opportunity comes a huge risk. But at least it won't be due to momentum or inertia, which are two opposing things. And let me know when we get to this film portion of things because I... Yeah, absolutely.

My question in the comic, because talking about, you know, the electorate has to suffer. Yep. Does he make them suffer in the comic because he doesn't remotely in the film. He blows up basically empty buildings. Yeah, he targets institutions of government right and does nothing else. Right. And now you could argue that there were some innocent people

in the buildings or whatever, but he doesn't. I would say that they're by being in there, they're complicit with the system. But yeah, either way, he doesn't, he's not gonna get the population. He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't, he's not terrorizing the problem. He doesn't condemn them in his speech in the, in the film version, nearly to the degree

that he does. He does, he does, he does, he does, he does, he does, he's much more empathetic. He's, he's much more, I understand. I understand. I talk about the book. I talk about the book. I talk about the book. I talk about the book.

I talk about the book. I talk about the book. I talk about the book. I talk about the book. I talk about the book. I talk about the book. I talk about the book. I talk about the book.

I talk about the book. I talk about the book. I talk about the book. It's true, he doesn't. In the film. So it's a very different approach. Yes. And can you see why Moore didn't like it? Yeah. Because he's like, you took the thing I will act and you sanitized it. But also larger than that. I mean, I'm sure that wasn't an argument of his, but he is well on record of, he doesn't

like any of his work being adapted to another medium. Right. Because he created it for that medium. It should stay forever in that medium and, you know, he perhands off, which is why he didn't work for DC for decades. That's true. That's true. But he's also happy to take their money.

No, he didn't take the money from... Not for the comics. To the comics he did. Yeah, yeah. But for the films, you know, his name was off of it, and he didn't take money, and I mean, he... He said he put his money on the shelf. He put that money toward Lloyd.

Yeah. He did after League of Extraordinary Gentlemen So when it was political polemics, yes, you're right. Okay prior to that He was happy to take the money when it shifted. Mm-hmm, which is fine. He gets to man. That's his No, it's his thing. He can take it or not. Yeah, but very very very different tone and film. yeah, you know I think that in the 80s it this was a clearly overblown thing like dude what an alarmist right and also in the film the Character of Evie who they age up from being a minor right because they wanted I don't know if it was solely because that was a

Disp tasteful thing to have in the film yeah or if it was solely because that was a distasteful thing to have in the film. Or if it was more because, and I don't know if it was in the comic, but they make the V and EV fall in love. No, they do it in the comic as well. Okay, so a little bit of a Lolita thing. A bit, but it's also the early 1980s where like a 17 year old marrying a man, R.A. age is not beyond the pale. It's not horrific, it's not like. It's not like you're going after small children.

Right, it was that borderline. Yeah, it's gross. But yeah, I mean, so you're right, there is that aspect of it too. And also, he brutalizes her, in my opinion, from the film perspective, for no other reason than You might

Out me yep, I need to know if you will or not, right? So I'm gonna do horrific things to you to protect my ideology and my goal That's so interesting cuz I don't I didn't which is exactly how I saw it I didn't see it like that. He never projected. This is for your own good. This is going to you know after the fact I was gonna say after the fact After the fact is now you're free now you're not but there is nothing leading up to that and I Would argue that if she had not Been in a position where she might You know the whole thing the scene with the um the bishop. Yeah, where she admits that she tried to right and she

Apologizes to him above all the blah. Had that not happened, I don't think he ever would have put her through that. Oh, I see. Okay, so I kind of call bullshit that you need to suffer to get to that point to make this decision because why didn't he do that when he first grabbed her if that was what needed to happen to her? I would argue that the timing of which was solely because she was a threat to his plan. Okay. He needed to know if she would break and turn him in so he could decide what he would or wouldn't do with her. Okay. See, I read that a little different, but when we get to the film, we'll talk about that. So essentially, there's your comic book,

right? And in the 80s, like I said, it's clearly overblown, right? But looking back at it, it really wasn't that overblown considering what's going on now. There were some very painful choices that England didn't make. And as such, a lot of people died, again, you know, infected a blood supply. A lot of people lost their rights. And when the labor party took back over in 1977, so from 79 to 77, okay, it was 79 to 87, you mean? No, 97. Okay, you said 79. Oh, I'm sorry.

You said 77 and I was confused. Yeah, I totally understand why. Now the labor party takes back over in 1977. Okay. So that's almost a generation under conservatism. It was led by Tony Blair, which is essentially the British Bill Clinton. So not really a liberal, a centrist, with mild liberal

leanings. And again, the parallels across the Ponder Stunning. It's, though, it's just more localized as a phenomenon. Regardless, both the Democrats in the US, in 92, right? 93 and the Labor Party in the UK were a way more conservative version of themselves than they had been before the other people had beaten them, before Reagan and before thatcher. They're not pro-union anymore.

They accept the union's help because who the hell the union is going to turn to. Right. There are certainly not pro-minearity. The Clintons talked about super predators. He did the three strikes in your out. He did the welfare, quote, reform, and stuff like that, making life harder for poor people and people of color to satisfy his more conservative base. Tony Blair did very similar things.

See if this sounds like anyone we grow up under. You and me, OK? Quote. Critics and admirers tend to agree that Blair's electoral success was based on his ability to occupy the center ground and appeal to voters across the political spectrum to the extent that he has been fundamentally

at odds with traditional labor party values. Some left-wing critics argued that Blair oversaw the final stage of a long-term shift of the labor party to the right. That's not like I president that you were in college under and I was a middle schooler under. Yeah, you could already do that. Yeah, that's clintonian. Yeah. But I mean, you know, they're. Yeah, that's clintonian. Yeah.

But I mean, you know, they're answering to the politics of their time. Right. They're answering to a, I mean, again, normally the United States likes to turn the pillow over every eight years, but under Reagan slash Bush, it was a 12 year turnover. And it would have been a 16 year turnover had Ross Perot not fucked it up for him. Yeah, pretty much. would have been a 16 year turnover, had Ross Pro not fucked it up for him. Yeah, pretty much. Which I'm very interested to see what a second bush

should have been. What it looked like and what that would have meant for the subsequent election. Yeah. But how to put, had Clinton won and lost, would he run again? And then the dominoes fall because if he's not elected, okay, Hillary doesn't get her prominence Right, which means it comes secretary state Bush to and all that doesn't you know, yeah, which means Bush to definitely doesn't get elected because that was very much a reaction to

Hillary Clinton and the Clintons He you know, I mean I'd even run right, you know, so yeah, there's a lot of what if. Yeah, I like alternative history. So that's very interesting. Yeah, yeah. But I would point out that both of these men, Blair and Clinton are a much more conservative, recasting, a re-skinning of the labor and the Democratic Party, of the left party, the party of the left, which it ceased

to be because the pendulum had been yanked so far to the right by their predecessors. Right, but I would argue that the party was still a party left is not as far left as it had been in the past. It wasn't a party right by any stretch. I would say it's a party of the center at the best by that point. And as a centrist, you dig that.

Not a horrible thing from where I'm sitting. Right, right. Whereas I'm looking at like, you see it as a failure. I don't see it as a failure. I see it as a shift. I see it as a shift. I think clearly, yeah, I acknowledge the shift.

So that the far left has become, you know, like where, if Eisenhower becomes a socialist, Yagon pretty far right. So England didn't despair. They didn't anguish. And they didn't truly suffer any abandonment. They just shifted to the left a little. The center had shifted to the right.

There's a new paradigm, one that takes those marginalized people for granted and ignores their needs. That's basically the Democrats. That's basically the Labor Party. Moore's writings seem to overblown because society ignored the temperature in the room rising and just adapted to its new heat. So they're lobsters. Yeah.

But more wished they had, okay? And so here, let me show you a picture of the police officer at the camp, seeing ghosts. Say something so. So the through line in the in the comic of him going back and assassinating you said he assassinated members of the party was in the comic was it just because there were members of the party or was it because of that subplot in the film of they were the ones at the camp that made him.

Oh no, it's still that subplot. That's still okay were the ones at the camp that made him. Oh no, it's still that subplot. That's still there. Yeah, yeah, okay. All right, so here you have the police officer, the head investigator, and he goes back to the camp and he takes LSD because it's the 80s and that's what you do. Okay.

These people that he's seeing are all ghosts. Oh, okay. And he says, oh, oh look, look, they're all smiling. They're all happy. God, it's been so long. I'd forgotten how rich the color of your skin was, a thousand special blends of coffee. The girls I saw hugging each other

and the demonstrations and the men so gentle, so softly spoken. You look at who's in this picture, and it's people of color. It's families of color. These are the people in the camp where he goes. My friends, they're at the carnival at the gay pride marches. We treated you so badly.

All the hateful things we printed, did and said, but please, please don't despise us. We were stupid, we were please, please don't despise us. We were stupid. We were kids. We didn't know. And then they leave him and he's having a bad trip. And that is the chief inspector? Yes.

OK. Not Crete, but I forget his name. Right. I'm trying to pull up the real quick actor. Oh, Stephen Ray. Yes, pitch. Yes. Okay, so interesting.

So now when did the camp? He went to the camp from the same reason. So what they did in writing, this was done on panel. Okay. Now this is after V gets shot. Okay. And please read for me what is being said. This country is not saved.

Do not think that. But all its old beliefs have come to rubble and from rubble we may build. That is their task to rule themselves, their lives, and loves, and land. Anarchy wears two faces, both creator and destroyer. Thus destroyers topple empires, make a canvas of clean rubble where creators can then can build a better world. Rubble once achieved, makes further ruins means irrelevant. And at last I know I know who I must be.

And that's Evie putting on the mask. All of us can become an anarchist. That's an anarchism, right? And so here she is looking in the mirror and then taking on the smile. And that's where we will stop there. So I would just say England prevails. So they didn't have to do the work.

Right. But I. And they didn't get to rubble. And as a result, they never to do the work. Right. But I and they didn't get to rubble. And as a result, they never paid for their sins. So they could ignore their sins. So they couldn't make whole what they had done wrong to so many people. Right. And I do take issue the assumption that destruction, not that destruction of certain institutions might be necessary at some point. But the assumption that something better will be built in I think is has a certain ITA and I agent itself I I would counter with this. I'm gonna push back with this. I get that

But we've seen what's been built on what this is and it's been genocide It's worth a shot. Oh, I think yeah, you know, and now we're moving into It's worth a shot. I think, yeah. And now we're moving into something that is near and during my heart, which is the most apocalyptic entertainment, because one of the things I find most interesting is when you take away the I heard the blanket of civilization, how do people react? Yes.

And that's even more so, for example, the book that I'm writing, I describe it as Game of Thrones meets Walking Dead, but no dragons and no zombies. So just the human elements. Meaning it's just people. Right. Because that was the aspect that I always found fascinating. Is that when you take away civilization, you know, in my estimation, people usually react broadly in one of three ways. Yep. They immediately try to rebuild what they lost. Right. They see it as an opportunity to build something different,

hopefully better, or they can't handle the collapse and they just lose their shit and then they become, you know, the way the way slands. Yeah. And for the most part, that's kind of where they end up. And, you know, which is why I find that genre so interesting, sure, which kind of leads into some of the themes of, you know, I why I find you know that genre so interesting sure which which kind of leads into some of the themes of you know I said tear down the establishment.

Yep yep so unfortunately that's the end of the comic is it's kind of like it's like romantic comedies where it's never is so or or is it this is potentially never ending yeah yeah that is swinging back and forth. Because he says you have a choice. Yeah. It's an existential choice. Right, part. And the question is, yeah, if they make that choice

and they tear that down, does that mean that eventually the pendulum will swing and you'll have to tear it all down again? Yeah. I think so. I think there is a kind of shevistic aspect to it. A, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, I think so. I think there is a kind of shevistic aspect to it. A capability. Yeah. And also just kind of goes back to the Hindu

pantheon of you, you have a cycle creation and destruction. I would say that this is the natural state, or the natural how to put bubbling up that happens that's gross, that if you don't deal with it, you're fucked, that happens in a democracy. Oh, I know absolutely, there's our... And that's a lot of ugly aspects of the democracy, just because, again, freedom versus security, you can have very orderly, you know, go back to you know Italy the train ran on time. They say Singapore very orderly, right and Not very free and it's possible to also provide for people's basic Substance needs, you know in a horrific society. Yeah from a control standpoint. Yeah, you know Yeah, in fact, it's easier to provide always for people

You know if you control everything and decide what people are going to get and all of that, you know, but you throw, like I said, many times in theory communism isn't necessarily a bad idea, but you put people into it right? It's all screwed up. Okay. I don't disagree with you. And I'll, I'll even give you the same thing for anarchism in theory, but then you put people in and it can get all screwed up.

I'm going to say can because I've got all the friends who kind of are getting my hair. In theory, fascism is always bad. I wouldn't disagree with you. So having said that, the last tear it all down. Yeah, but no, I didn't mean that. Because look what grew out of it.

Yes, tear it all down. I'm sorry, we're gonna have to lock off that leg. Learn to walk. You know, we'll build you a nice prosthetic. But so I would say that when people go to both sides route, when they say, well, they're like, Alan Moore did and I don't agree with them. Well, they're both equals. No, no, they're not.

Because this one has the potential to go on, go bad. This one will. And it's proven as such. Right, because an inherent part of the system is oppression. And you approach that side. Of certain groups and things like that. No, I can see that because if there was a brand of flavor of fascism that didn't have that, if fascism came in a variety of styles and intensities, you could

argue that the whole democratic socialist thing. Yes, there's a variety of socialisms. Right. Some more government heavy than others. And you pick and choose aspects of the idea. So, by definition, socialism is not one thing. Right. Fascism is yeah, yeah Yeah, I see where I see where I come from so at this point Oh, we're gonna we're gonna stop here and in the next episode we'll talk about the movie okay So as usual I get very text heavy and then finally get to the thing I'm talking about in the second episode So I'll ask you what I've always asked that what have you gleaned?

I've g asked that. What have you gleaned? I've gleaned that my point of view of the content based solely on the film is very different. And I obviously know a little bit more about history, the history of that period, which I didn't know a lot about. And I need to digest it. Sure. Because it is a lot. I tend to feed you water with a firehouse. It's very different from, like I said, you know, I came in here prepared to speak, talk about the film, and not knowing just how much the two-died verge of the sort of, how far it went from the source material.

So, no, I think it's interesting. I do, again, my point of view, and my cynicism on human nature, I don't always, I understand the motivation of this is bad and the the whole almost anything is better than this point of view of that. And I totally get that. But sometimes the chaos or energy in the way that it is popularly used nowadays nowadays that would follow that tear down of the structure it is for a short term could be worse yeah no I get that the institutions I get that because I mean you know Edmund Burke and and you know Maximilian Robes pair and like you know you get that swing right and you lose social cohesion and it goes real bad real quick it's it's like I forget the it's a the German word when the young, all the folks go out

into the world for a while. Room-shroom-hung. There you go. You get a little bit of that, or going off the college for the first time. Right. You know, all bests are off, that. Yeah, yeah.

So temporarily, it could conceivably be worse than, well, not that it isn't a defensive keeping what was there. Right. It's just a concern. Sure, no, I totally understand that. We need a saucer to cool the cup sometimes. We do.

Sometimes we gotta pull the whole fucking thing down and burn it to ground. So, salty or something. Like when you find this spider in your house, I'm sorry they had to burn your house down. Exactly. All right, well, do you wanna go ahead and plug your comic? Yeah, my comic is called The Republic.

And it is going to be a four issue mini-series. It's post-apocalyptic, as I mentioned in the setting we talked about. The approach I went, there's different ways to go with your setting. I went the route of a couple centuries after the event that led to the downfall. The itself is not critical to the plot line. I do know what it is in my head, but it's not necessary to know.

I do like stories that do that. Yeah. No, this is just the thing. And I don't know if you have ever read a canicle for Libelwitz. I've not. That is a post-apocalyptic book that is set probably a thousand years or more after Okay, the events and one of the aspects I liked of that was the

current day people finding things from the past and misinterpreting what they mean Ah, and seeing things slightly differently. Sure. So and I just I seeing things slightly differently. Sure. So, and I just, I, going back to the analogy of Game of Thrones and Walking Dead, Walking Dead is very good at telling personal stories of individuals and how they react to the apocalypse, which I've tried to do in my own humble way. And then Game of Thrones has a larger scale, more epic, you know, battles, things like that, which is something else

that I wanted to put in as well. So when can we look forward to buying this? My hope is to have the art and everything done in the first half of next year. And during that process, my hope is to secure a publisher. So if the stars align, everything goes perfectly, I would love to have, you know, out at some point before the end of next year. Well, I think by being on this podcast, you guaranteed that you're going to get into your several publishers, because I'm sure they all listen to the hard news.

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, absolutely. So all right. Well, uh, uh, give us your name again. I'm Tim Watts. And I'm Damien Harmony. And as Ed would say, may all of your dice roll 20.