by ChrisSick

In which we discuss hate – and the limitations of dick jokes to thoroughly explore policy in a meaningful and informative manner.

“I hate … not, though, I trust, with the hate that sins, but a righteous hate.” — Herman Melville, The Confidence Man (1857)

It is a righteous hate, that brings me here. I’m hopeful that by now we’ve established the ground rules of this column. That you understand that my job, basically, is to be your amusing little political monkey. Both by the standards I established for myself and the limitations dictated by the resources available to me, my task each week is to retype the salient points of the weekly political news with the addition of strategically placed cuss words and blowjob jokes.

It isn’t terribly challenging, but it has its uses, if only for entertainment. Of course, we should all pause momentarily and ruminate on the type of society that produces political entertainment, rather than deeply intelligent and informative news coverage as an essential requirement of an educated electorate, who then act in their own enlightened self-interest. This is a topic I could, and would, greatly like to explore at considerable length.

Although, at times, it can be quite enjoyable to be the Tactical Animal – to give voice to my purest inner Werewolf – it is naturally limiting. While it amuses me — and hopefully you — to write about wanting to blow Bill Clinton, it should be noted that no matter how lovingly he speaks of liberal policies, it was his deregulation, coupled with W’s that helped create the conditions for the 2008 economic meltdown.

As much as I want Barack Obama to win the election and remain in the Oval Office, it’s hard to cheerlead so relentlessly for a President who thinks its more important to prosecute the people who grow weed for cancer patients than it is to call to account the people on Wall Street who burned down the global economy.

And I’ve always assumed that, at some point, I could and would expand the horizons on this column beyond my basic remit of summarizing, weekly, the ongoing political knife fight while making snide dick jokes.

But I cannot.

Because week in and week out, Mitt Romney and his campaign just insists on being a gang of complete fucking assholes.

For the next 50 days, 17 hours and 11 minutes, Mitt Romney will find a way — sure as the sun shines — to displace whatever topic I had intended to write about and force me to comment on his utter dishonesty, his complete incompetence, and his cruel naivete.

“Mitt Romney will never be president

“His disgraceful dishonesty in using the murder of a U.S. ambassador to attack Obama will haunt him”

— Headline and sub-head from September 12, 2012 article by Joan Walsh, Salon.com

I agree with Ms. Walsh here, in substance, though not analysis. Mitt Romney will never be President. Not because of this, or really, any particular news story. Not because of any gaffe or any poll. Not even because of any stated policy that is widely unpopular with the general electorate.

But due to all of those things, and more. Mitt Romney has now been running for President for most of the past decade. His private and public careers seem to have been designed by campaign managers to be placed into thirty-second TV spots to convince you of his worthiness and capability for high office. Indeed, everything about Mitt Romney — with the exception of the tax returns he refuses to release — seems to be designed to make him President, down to his flawless hair, which now has its own Facebook account.

His desire to be your President is so thinly veiled, so achingly transparent, that it’s impossible to assume he stands for anything, other than that he, Willard Mitt Romney, should be President. And with that as his only true, core position, all others, necessarily, become subverted to it.

If you need another list of high-profile Romney position changes, my continued suggestion is that you crawl out from under your rock and pay some goddamn attention to the people who want to run the world’s leading superpower. But, just so you have a point of reference, you can look at this list of fourteen position changes that McCain’s op-research team came up with in 2008, or this list compiled by the editors of Rolling Stone, or WaPo’s Fact-Checker blog for an in-depth look at many of the accused flip-flops.

Because, at the risk of repeating myself — there is no core, animating principle to Mitt Romney beyond the burning conviction that he should be President. Which, besides the mountainous evidence that he will take any position likely to service that end goal, leads him to make ridiculous and factually untrue statements almost constantly. Case in point:

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

— Romney Campaign statement, one minute into September 12, 2012

For the curious, Kevin Drum at Mother Jones has a nice explanation of why this is, basically, complete and utter horseshit regardless of the day it was released.

“There are two big problems with this:

It’s a lie. The embassy statement Romney is referring to was issued several hours before the attack. It was not a response to the attacks.

It’s scurrilous to suggest that Obama ‘sympathized’ with the attackers.
There was nothing in the embassy statement that suggested any kind
of sympathy, and the actual first response from the Obama
administration very clearly condemned the attacks.”

— Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, September 12, 2012

This is your Republican candidate for President. This is a man who will say anything — true or not — to anyone, at any time, if he thinks it will help him become President. A man who’s still struggling to win over his own party. Who is trying — haltingly and with much attention paid to his attempts — to speak their language without alienating “mainstream” voters, otherwise known as those who haven’t completely lost their shit at the election of a black man.

Which, by no means, should be read as an indication that Obama is perfect and scrupulously honest. And, believe it or not, I would love nothing more than to have just one motherfucking week of Republicans not being complete assholes so that I could more fully explore my many, many issues with the presidency of Barack Obama.

But that will, most likely, never happen. There will be even more outrageous acts, similar to these comments. Outrage will pile upon outrage. Outrage at outrage. Meta-outrage. And, yes, even I am outraged.

Not at Romney’s cheap opportunism, not at his deeply craven political instincts, not as his attempts to appease his openly racist base. No, I’m outraged that anyone would willingly allow this man to lead their party. I’m outraged by the banality of it.

Mitt Romney isn’t offensive or shocking, really. He’s just another overly-entitled rich kid who can’t understand why he can’t have something he wants. Given everything he could want his whole life, he seems incapable of understanding why he can’t have anything he wants.

And as the Obama convention bounce has transitioned, gradually, to the Obama lead, it becomes more and more clear that Mitt Romney, as Joan Walsh said, will never, ever be your President. As this reality sinks in at the headquarters of Team Mittens, we will see ever more bizarre, surprising, and desperate moves from the campaign.

In much the way that the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate proved, in retrospect, to be a desperate move by a struggling campaign, so too will the selection of Paul Ryan prove to be the beginning of the end of the Romney campaign. Things will get worse before they get better, I assure you.

And I will be here, every week for the next 50 days, conducting the brutal autopsy of his stillborn campaign.

Instead of talking about anything that actually matters and worth a damn.

Related Posts
Tactical Animal: Sorry Folks, Election’s Over, Donkey Out Front Shoulda Told Ya
Tactical Animal: Politics In The Post-Truth Era
Tactical Animal: Now We’ve Got Ourselves A Race

by Blogbot

Every week we ask the ladies and gentlemen of the web to show us their finest ink in celebration of #TattooTuesday.

Our favorite submission from Twitter wins a free 3 month membership to SuicideGirls.com.

This week’s #TattooTuesday winner is @jaismiles.

Enter this week’s competition by replying to this tweet with a pic of your fav tattoo and the #tattootuesday hashtag.

Good luck!

A few things to remember:

• You have to be 18 to qualify.
• The tattoo has to be yours…that means permanently etched on your body.
• On Twitter we search for your entries by looking up the hashtag #TattooTuesday, so make sure you include it in your tweet!

Check out the Tattoo Tuesday winners of weeks past!

by Jovanka (Jen) Vuckovic

“What it comes down to is two words: creation and imagination.”
– Clive Barker

You know his name, you know his movies, and you damn well better know his books. Twenty years ago, Clive Barker redefined horror literature with his infamous Books of Blood; a genre-shattering, breakthrough collection of abbreviated nightmares in print. His fantastic tales were a masterful blend of extreme horror and poetry of the perverse, comparable to the best of Poe and de Sade.

His six controversial anthologies, of course, were a huge success and lead Barker to a rightful seizure of horror’’s cinematic throne just three years later with Hellraiser,– the highly influential, flesh-wrecking slice of sadistic cinema and unholy nativity of Pinhead, one of the genre’’s most intriguing and enduring icons.

Nevertheless, over the last decade, Barker has been criticized by genre fans for abandoning horror in both literature and cinema, his last directorial effort having been 1995’’s Lord of Illusions. But a closer look at his body of work reveals that, despite varying subject matter, he’’s never really left us at all. Now armed with a bloody bible of new material and grand designs, Clive Barker is poised to reinvigorate the genre in the way only he can.

Like the great William Blake, Barker is an artistic polymorph; whether it be painting, poetry, erotica or horror, his monolithic imagination has always addressed the strange, dark and unusual– right on through to Abarat, his new series of children’s’ fiction. Whatever artistic discipline he expresses himself through, Barker always dives deep into the dark waters of his soul for inspiration, fearlessly exploring its boundless depths.

Barker comes full circle with his film label Midnight Picture Show, a collaboration with Anthony DiBlasi and Joe Daley, the creative team behind Barker’’s Seraphim Films (Saint Sinner, Lord of Illusions). The new genre-specific, hard horror label plans to produce two films per year taken from the Books of Blood anthologies, with the purpose of creating and entire library of movies aptly-titled the Films of Blood.

Beginning with Midnight Meat Train,– a cannibalistic tale of subway train terror from the very first volume,– MPS plans to follow up with a delicious assortment of Blood stories including Pig Blood Blues, Age Of Desire, In The Flesh, The Madonna, The Life Of Death, Jacqueline Ess and Twilight At The Towers.

In addition to producing the Films of Blood, Barker also plans to return to the director’s chair with Tortured Souls, a new movie based on his McFarlane line of toys. And if you’’ve been turned off by the fantasy literature that the author has been pumping out over the last ten years, a new anthology of collected shorts and poetry –– which includes a story that will spell the death of Pinhead –– is the violent Viagra pill you’’ve been waiting for.

SuicideGirls communed with Barker in a frank and intimate talk on everything from his struggle to get the Books of Blood published to his fear of dying. Sit down, eavesdrop…

Read our interview with Clive Barker on SuicideGirls.com.

by Sandor Stern

Dear Republican Friends,

Regarding Healthcare: A Tale Of Two Countries…

In my previous letter I outlined the facts that spurred my questioning of your stance on healthcare, I thought I might offer two stories that personalize the issue and portray a sharp contrast in style and substance.

In 2008, my niece, J, living in Los Angeles was diagnosed with an ovarian tumor that was possibly malignant. She required hospitalization and surgery. At the time she was an employee at a firm that did not offer health insurance. As a single mother of a 14 years-old athletic boy subjected to sports injuries, she had purchased private insurance at what was an affordable rate for her circumstances – $275/month. The plan offered her one doctor’s visit per quarter and two visits for her son per quarter. Her co-pay for those 12 visits was 20% of the bill. Any visits beyond that would be paid out of her own pocket. Her annual cap on medical bills was $30,000. Her deductable for hospitalization was $5000.

My wife took her to the hospital where she was informed she would not be admitted without paying the $5000 deductable first. After a heated argument, the hospital allowed J in for a $1000 payment on my credit card. Surgery revealed a malignant tumor that had spread to the other ovary. Both ovaries were excised. The day following surgery while in intensive care she was informed that she must pay the remaining $4000 immediately. A panic call later and J’s father paid the money. Fortunately she had family to help her out and fortunately, the tumor had not metastasized to other organs and she required no radiation or chemo. She was discharged after eight days. Her hospital bill totaled $85,780.11. With the PPO reduction and the $30,000 annual cap, the final payment she personally owed was $24,557.07. Her surgeon’s bill was $3600 of which she paid $1200 out of pocket. Her oncologist, as an act of kindness, waved his fee. She could not afford to pay off the hospital bill and arranged for monthly payments. Her debt was sold off by the hospital to a collection agency. She has continued to pay $50.00 a month for the past 4 years. That has barely paid the monthly interest. She presently owes $22,000. She maintains her insurance policy, fearing to seek another insurer because of her pre-existing condition. Her monthly payments are now $325.

Her son is now 18 years-old and attending college. Because of the Affordable Care Act he is allowed to remain on her insurance policy – inadequate though it remains. And because of the Affordable Care Act the arbitrary annual cap on coverage has been eliminated.

My friend, D, is an American citizen who grew up in Canada. He was educated there and worked in the entertainment industry. In 2005 he arrived in Los Angeles to seek work in a playing field much larger than that in Canada. In 2007 he began having health issues that led to a diagnosis of a brain tumor. He had no health insurance. The cost of surgery and hospitalization would be more than $275,000 with an additional $200,000 if complications occurred. His neurosurgeon gave him a list of the four best surgeons in North America for his type of tumor. One of those surgeons was in Toronto. Since D had left Canada just under two years ago, his Ontario Hospital Insurance was still valid. He flew to Toronto and met with the Canadian neurosurgeon. A team of six medical specialists contributed their expertise to his diagnosis. Within six weeks he underwent successful surgery. The total out of pocket expense was a $100 co-pay that had been newly introduced by OHIP and which the hospital apologized for having to charge him.

A few months following his recovery he returned to Toronto for a follow-up MRI. He had not been feeling well but there was no indication that any of his symptoms were a result of his brain surgery. He visited an internist who recommended a cardiac stress test. Following that, D took a train to visit his mother in Cornwall, Ontario, 300 miles east of Toronto. While on the train he received a call from his internist informing him that his stress test was troubling and he should come to the office ASAP. D explained that he was on a train to visit his mother and would be back in Toronto in a few days. The internist told him that when the train reached his destination he should immediately take a cab to the ER of the nearest hospital. D balked. The doctor was adamant. He did as told. At the ER he was examined and diagnosed with a silent coronary. He was immediately sent by ambulance to a cardiac unit in Ottawa where he underwent angioplasty. He recovered from that bout. His total out of pocket expense for all that – ER treatment, ambulance ride, angioplasty and hospital stay was zero dollars.

He returned to Los Angeles in good health and good spirits. He went back to Toronto three months later for another MRI and six months after that for gamma radiation and an MRI. For the next two years he received an MRI in Toronto every six months. There have been zero medical costs to him.

Aside from the excellent treatment at no cost, D shared with me the most significant moment in his medical odyssey. When he first visited the neurosurgeon in Toronto, he was terrified. There had been much discussion in Los Angeles and in Toronto about the invasiveness of his tumor. It was wrapped around his brain stem. In removing the tumor, how much damage would be done to the healthy tissue? Would he lose his hearing? Would he be paralyzed? Would he lose some other essential function? He related those fears to the surgeon. The man’s response: “I will remove as much of the tumor as possible without damaging healthy tissue even if it means not excising all the tumor tissue. It’s a slow growing tumor and perhaps in five years I will need to operate again but maybe not. There is nothing compelling us to take it all in one bite.” That was a reassurance D needed. “Think about it.” he told me. “I was dealing with a healthcare system in which the cost factor no longer entered the equation. Can you imagine a surgeon in the USA having the freedom to work that way? He knows he has one shot at cutting out that tumor and getting every bit of it because the system here is controlled by private-for-profit insurance companies and a second surgery would not be covered. The annual cap on insurance outlay would take care of that possibility.”

As I stated previously, the Affordable Care Act has since removed the arbitrary annual cap on coverage that existed in 2007.

During the election of 2008, I told these stories to a Republican friend. He made no comment about D’s story, ignoring it completely. As for my niece, his response was: “She should have gotten better insurance.” Really? I was indignant at his dismissive attitude but this year I heard a similar remark from your candidate, Mitt Romney. When urging an audience of college students to become entrepreneurs he said: “Start your own business. If you can’t get the money borrow it from your parents.”

Really?

Your inquisitive friend,

Sandy

Related Posts

Dear Republican Friends: Regarding Your Stand On Healthcare…
Dear Republican Friends: Regarding Your Stand On Taxation…

by SG’s Team Agony feat. Yulia

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.

Q: I guess this isn’t a major thing or whatever, but at the moment it is to me. In my head I imagine the things couples do, simple things like going on a walk or a picnic, going out to dinner and then to the cinema, but these are probably more like what happens in movies than in real life – or at least I haven’t done these with my girlfriend and we’ve been going out 8 months now. I really want to spend time and go out and do these things with her. I’m only 19 and this is the second and longest relationship I have been in, so I’m not sure how these things go or whatever.

I guess my first question is: In movies and on TV shows you see/hear of people having “the conversation.” Do people actually do this? Is it important to have the conversation?

The main thing is, my girlfriend works all the time, and I mean literally all the time. She’s working 12-hour shits, and double shifts one after the other – sometimes without a break – so she can afford to live where she recently moved to. This means that we don’t see each other that often and when we do it’s usually not for long. I pop in to her work to see her on my way from college to work or if I’m in town, and occasionally I spend the night at hers but then she has to leave early in the morning for work. I want to cook her pancakes for breakfast and have breakfast in bed or something to be romantic, but she doesn’t eat breakfast and is always rushing off to work. I feel that whenever we have longer to spend with each other, I go round her flat and it’s always the same. We watch TV for a bit, maybe while we’re eating lunch or something, then we go to her bedroom to snuggle which always turns into a bit more and then she’s off to work like as soon as we’re done. I don’t mind what we do, it’s just her leaving at the end. It’s all a bit rushed when really all I want to do is spend time with her.

Recently I’ve been feeling down and have been in weird moods, and it’s because I keep thinking about this and I don’t know what to do. I’m happy with her and I love her, I just don’t know whether to tell her or not. I guess, I don’t want it to ruin our relationship, but also I don’t really want to be hiding how I feel from her.

I guess my second question is: Do I tell her how I’m currently feeling or just be patient and glad of every opportunity we get to spend together? I know she has to work, I just wish I could spend more time with her. I just don’t know how. I don’t know what to do any more.

Sincerely,

Quite a bit confused in the UK

A: It definitely sounds like you could both use a change of scenery! I can relate to both of you. I live in an expensive city with ridiculous rental rates but what you’re describing as the ideal is exactly what I hope for in relationships too. On that note, I wouldn’t be surprised if your girlfriend felt the same way you do about wanting a richer “dating” life, but she may feel powerless and at a loss as to how to change anything. She may not want to bring up the problem without having a solution.

If “the conversation” is about where you each stand and where the relationship is going, yes, people do talk about these things. But I don’t find these conversations are pre-planned or even announced most of the time; instead, they just happen. You’re walking somewhere together and something you said makes her ask, “So am I your girlfriend?” or something like that, or vice versa. Obviously you two are pretty comfortable together by now, since 8 months have passed, but these future-oriented talks can still be awkward. Wait until the moment feels right, no one is stressed or rushed (at least not immediately), and do tell her how you feel and ask how she feels too. I’ve known more relationships to end because the couple couldn’t talk to each other openly than those that ended because they could. Tell her how much you like/love her, and then tell her that because you feel this way you want a bit more.

Nothing has to change drastically, unless your girlfriend wins a lottery and can cut back on work. You could suggest simple things to change up your routine and refresh your relationship that wouldn’t take much extra time, such as having lunch on a balcony or in a nearby park instead of in front of the TV. Play cards or Scrabble for entertainment. Meet at a museum or gallery instead of her apartment. Go see a matinee; it’s not quite a dinner date, but if the schedule allows… If you’re up for a goofier idea, suggest a throwback to middle school with Truth or Dare — if this is appealing and you both are into it, you might be able to start that conversation quite appropriately. I don’t doubt that your girlfriend is chronically exhausted from overwork, so I wouldn’t recommend trying anything too exerting until she has some time off.

Good luck! You’re an amazing person for wanting to get out and have fun with your lady. I’m sure deep down she appreciates it and is utterly grateful to have you in her life.

Yulia

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com

by M. J. Johnson

“Look at that fat, lazy bitch!”
“Eat a sandwich!”
“Why don’t you go to the gym?”
“You’re too skinny to be a good role model.”
“Lard-ass!”
“Skinny Skank!”
“Lose some weight!”
“Put some meat on your bones!”
“No fatties!”
“Look out, wide load coming through!”
“Bean-pole!”
“Why don’t you do something about your weight?”

When someone is trying to prove how open minded they are about people, they will often say something along the lines of “I don’t care if they’re black, white, yellow, red, gay, straight, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or Buddhist.” This is supposed to prove that all people are equal in their mind.

But what about a person’s body size?

We live in a sizeist society. Long past the time when it was acceptable to judge someone’s worth based on sex, gender, race, culture, religion, body mods, or ethnicity (though such judgments DO still occur), it is common and largely acceptable to judge someone based on their body type. Comedians commonly joke about Chris Christie’s weight, as if that has something to do with his terrible politics. Articles are written about Keira Knightley’s body type in which self-proclaimed beauty experts call her “dangerously thin” and encourage parents to keep their daughters from seeing her movies, lest the young girls think they need to look like her.

I am a fat man. I’m 6’2” tall and weigh somewhere around 335 lbs. I have a ring of fat around my middle, and climbing 6 flights of stairs makes me breath heavy. Based on that physical description, many people would write me off as an individual, not worth their time and effort. Any opinion of mine could be dismissed because it came from my body.

And I can hear the criticisms: “You’re smart, why don’t you exercise? Why don’t you eat right?” Well, it just so happens that I do. Until I moved to a different state, I was going to the gym 4-5 times per week, 1-2 hours at a time, where I did a cross between aerobic and weight training. My blood pressure is well within the normal range for my age, and my resting pulse is below 80.

But I am still fat. I don’t overeat any more often than a normal sized person; I average about 2500 calories per day, which is just enough to keep someone my size going. I rarely use salt, eat lots of fruit and little red meat, drink water almost exclusively (with an exception for a daily coffee, no sugar, no flavors). I avoid sodas like the plague, and cook almost all my own meals.

Maybe I’m atypical. Maybe I’m genetically predisposed to obesity. Maybe nothing I can do will ever result in me being thin. Or, maybe I just haven’t hit that perfect relation of exercise to food that will turn me into an Adonis.

The point is, nobody can tell that by looking at me. Nobody can tell whether I exercise or sit around playing video games all day. (I don’t. Can’t stand the things.) All anyone can see is that I’m a fat man, and far too many people will dismiss me as such.

This is far from a new idea. For over a century, obesity has been used as a symbol of greed, corruption, and downright evil. There is a reason Dashiell Hammett made the principle villain in his book The Maltese Falcon obese, known for the first half only as “The Fat Man.” This was the Great Depression; anyone with more than enough to eat must have been crooked. The film version came out in the 1940s, at a time when the only roles black actors could get were as servants. Funny how one type of prejudice is not acceptable today, but the other is.

“But people have no control over their race like they do their weight.”

That would be a valid argument, if it were anywhere close to reality. But the truth is, the reasons behind obesity, and why one person gets fat while another does not, are myriad. And, while an inactive lifestyle is, if not the main factor, often a large reason, it is not the only one. Medications, medical conditions, genetics, depression, sleeping habits, limited access to healthy foods or safe free exercise areas (parks, walking trails), even the weather can be factors to obesity.

Of course, us fat folks aren’t the only ones being attacked by sizeism; thin people are often stereotyped as bulimic or anorexic. Yes, those are terrible diseases, but they are not the only reason people are thin. Where an obese person can have an underactive thyroid, a thin person’s can be overactive. This can result in a metabolism that burns away huge amounts of food, faster than the person can eat. And before anyone gets their “Oh, I wish I had that problem” hat on, think about it: always being hungry, needing to eat huge amounts to keep from feeling ill or passing out, spending larger and larger amounts of money just on food.

Why does this happen? Why is sizeism an acceptable prejudice? Maybe it has some connection to the “Cult of the Perfect,” the subconscious worship of beauty. Angelina Jolie wrote a book a few years ago, about her work among the poor children of Third World countries. The message of this book is good, but the writing is pretty pedestrian, and it is far from the only book on the topic. But, because of her celebrity, built largely on her looks, the book was a best seller. It is great, or would be if people actually read the book. I fear many people just bought the book because it was by her than for actual social/cause awareness. Sally Struthers has been doing much the same work for decades, but the most common reaction to her is to make a fat joke.

The point of all this is, you simply cannot tell what is going on by looking at the outside. The basis for all prejudice is ignorance, and that applies to sizeism as well. Unless you are that person’s doctor, with a complete medical history in front of you, it is impossible for you to make any judgment about a person based on their body. And even if you do have that information, passing judgments about someone as a person based on their body-type is no different than passing judgment based on race, ethnicity, gender, sex, or any other physical attribute.

This isn’t about attractiveness; everyone has, and is allowed to have, their type. If someone is not your cup of tea, so be it. This is about making assumptions about a person, stereotyping them, based on their physical form.

And that is always wrong.

by Aaron Colter

Wild Children by Ales Kot and Riley Rossmo is one of the bolder comic releases of late. With an industry still stuck in rehashing old characters and making blockbuster movies, Image Comics has given two independent creators the opportunity to publish a graphic novella that is equal parts teenage rebellion and conceptual reality.

SuicideGirls reached out to the creators to talk about the inspiration behind the book, since any review of it would contain spoilers. If you’ve already read Wild Children, this should give you some insight into the creative process behind the title. If you haven’t, don’t worry. This interview should give you enough reason to check it out soon at your local comics shop.

Aaron Colter: Ales, what made you want to write a book like this?

Ales Kot: About twenty different things, really. As with almost everything, the origin of Wild Children can be traced to my childhood. My parents led me to question authority and desire to understand things as they truly are, and not just as they are presented. I took it a bit further than my parents expected. I loved school in the beginning, but the overall atmosphere of it quickly unfolded itself as a prison-like structure created to build docile citizens that would perpetuate the already dead dream of capitalism and infinite growth. Pair that up with the messy divorce my parents went through when I was about ten, and I quickly realized things were much more complex than the teachers were saying. So I began questioning them, first with an honest interest, and then eventually just to piss them off, because being nice never got me anywhere with them – except for the few that were at least partially aware of the absurdity of the system they were both facing and keeping alive.

AC: Riley, what made you want to draw this story?

Riley Rossmo: Young people get often painted poorly in the media – either as violent geek shut-ins about to snap, or nymphomaniac cheerleaders. But the range is so much greater. Young people can be brilliant, well-intentioned individuals. Wild Children addresses some of that, it doesn’t fall back on typical teen archetypes.

AC: Following the tragedies in Colorado and Wisconsin, are you worried that Wild Children will be seen as insensitive or promoting violence?

AK: Not at all. Wild Children is not a cheap army propaganda-style FPS like Call of Duty. Ultimately, it will be whatever people decide to see it as, but that’s beyond my reach. The intent is not there, and we don’t care about cheap sensationalism, although the comic kind of invites it.

Anyone who uses fiction as a crux when explaining their own stupid decisions — “The Devil in the Comic/Game/Movie/Music Made Me Do It” is a person that needs therapy, and lots of love and patience. Anyone who supports that logic will likely require the same.

AC: Were you both rebellious kids? Did you get in trouble in school a lot?

RR: Yup. I couldn’t handle people telling what to do without giving me a reason. I loved reading, so I’d read all the assigned books, but thought it was a huge waste of time to regurgitate my thoughts in essay form. I was pretty angry – mostly I would skip class, go to the arcade and play video games or paint, draw or silk screen. I had a couple great art teachers that would let me do art in their classes, even though I was skipping other classes to be there. I liked girls – they were probably the biggest draw. And it was the best place to go to when you wanted to acquire anything illegal. Very little learning happened in the class.

AK: Yeah, once I hit a certain age, I definitely did my best to get in as much trouble as possible. It’s not that I wanted the trouble – I just wanted to show that I didn’t care for the fake rules and spineless non-authorities, and that they wouldn’t put me down. A history teacher once gave me a verbal test in front of the entire class because she suspected I was off my tits, and I got B+, although I should have gotten an A. Nearly everyone in the class knew about my state, so it’s still one of my fondest memories. Apart from that, I skipped school a lot, first because I simply hated it and was bullied, later because I just wanted to hang out with girls or read somewhere quiet on my own. I remember a school where some schoolmates used to do speed off the toilet boards, sex in class, things on fire…the first time I had a gun pointed at me was in front of the first school I went to. So I guess there was some trouble, yes.

AC: Are either of you familiar with the concept of brain-hacks? Essentially tricks to shape your reality. A new book called D.I.Y. Magic by Anthony Alvarado touches on some of these notions. I ask because Wild Children talks of magic. Are either of you interested in magic on any sort of level?

RR: I love magic. I like street magic, metaphysics, performers that use misdirection in new ways. I think there’s a lot more out there than I can conceive of. There’s so much in the world that can’t quite be coincidence, or chance.

AK: Oh, absolutely. I hack my brain – more accurately, my entire being – and Wild Children is definitely a brain hack, or at least an honest attempt at one. I meditate, explore reality, observe how my mind shapes it, do my best to learn as much as I can and then implement all the new tricks into my daily life. I haven’t heard of D.I.Y. Magic, but I’m going to read it now. I’m currently reading Colin Wilson’s The Occult for the first time and it’s a crucial experience. I don’t think there’s any difference between what we call magic and what we call science. It’s just about seeing the hidden strings and learning how to operate them. Words and pictures are some of the strongest magical/scientific properties in our daily arsenal, because they shape the reality we live in to an uncanny extent. And, as Harvey Pekar said, you can do anything with words and pictures…Magic. It’s fun. Take it seriously. Like it’s science. Because it is. Just work to see the hidden threads.

AC: The notion of comics being a separate reality or a meta-world within a world that we create is something that’s very Grant Morrison in ways that resemble his work The Filth and even concepts in The Invisibles. What other comics inspired this project?

AK: Kill Your Boyfriend by Grant Morrison and Philip Bond – a great story about teenage revolt that I loved as a kid. It’s very similar to Badlands and Natural Born Killers, it’s angry, it’s fresh, it’s short, and it packs a punch. I loved that comic, and it came out in the same format as Wild Children – a short graphic novella. I also thought about Shoot, the long-unreleased Hellblazer story about school shootings that DC Entertainment shelved back in the day because it was about to be released just as Columbine shootings happened. I disagreed with that decision – the comic wasn’t sensationalist at all, and it had some important things to say. When I conceived of Wild Children, I wanted to combine these two comic books into a new one, into a graphic novella that would feel truly 2012 while paying its respects to the stories that influenced its birth. Casanova and the brave way it approaches itself and the medium. Asterios Polyp for some of the more theoretical stuff in the middle. John Smith’s writing influenced the ending. Graphic novellas by Alan Moore, Warren Ellis and their collaborators. There are some nods to Frank Miller’s early work in the beginning. Dash Shaw’s work. Matt Seneca’s webcomix – I love Affected – and his comics theory as well.

The inspiration related to Wild Children hit from many different sources. Filmmakers like Cronenberg, Lynch, Godard, Kubrick and Tarkovsky were instrumental in forming my approach early on, and they still influence me a lot. Music by Flying Lotus, Fuck Buttons, Pictureplane, Aphex Twin, DJ Rupture, Kode 9, Burial, Coil, early Marilyn Manson. Al Columbia’s art, anything Brandon Graham does. Books by Hakim Bey, Robert Anton Wilson, Kenji Siratori, Jorge Luis Borges, P.K. Dick, Douglas Rushkoff and others. Some of the ideas in Rushkoff’s Life, Inc. influenced Wild Children quite directly.

AC: Something else that comes across in the book is that all of the adults seem threatened by teenagers, who are, for the most part, harmless on a large scale. Do you think society is afraid of teenagers in real life? If so, why?

AK: It’s quite clear that some parts of our society are afraid of teenagers in real life, yes. People who are shriveled inside, whether they’re physically young or old, forget to question things, and live in their temporary sand castles, often doing everything they can to keep them standing, regardless of how much harm that imposes on everyone and everything else. The teenagers inevitably belong to our society, and it’s often quite impossible to destroy their idealistic energy right away.

It’s not exactly correct to say that only young people push things forward – it’s people with a young attitude, wanting to learn, to discover the world, be in awe of the universe, that make the world a better place to live, and help us all evolve. But we’re often taught to expect the worst – 31% of Americans are likely to suffer from an anxiety problem at some point during their lifetimes – and when we’re worried or downright scared, rules make us feel safer, however temporary that illusory safety is. And rules are, by and large, something the new generations seems to have less and less use for. “Chaos is evil, rules are good.” is an excruciatingly stale narrative. The world is much more complex. Question everything.

AC: As bad as our generation may have it, there may be less opportunities for those just now starting to grow up. Why do you think more students in America don’t demand access to education in the same way students in other countries have?

AK: Because they don’t believe in the system, perhaps? I’m genuinely not sure if I can answer this question well enough, but I’ll do my best. I imagine that a huge part of it is the fact that we’re observing the collapse of capitalism, and whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we know that’s what’s happening. We’re offered a choice between a guy that believes that corporations are people, supports penalties for doctors who perform abortions, won’t release his tax returns and most likely would perform fellatio on a pig for a nickel, or a guy that supports extraordinary rendition, secret kill lists and illegal spying on the people he swore to serve and protect.

AC: If you could give you teenage self one piece of advice, what would it be?

RR: Make more art, and let your anger go.

AK: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Wink, wink, wank.

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