So You Say You Don’t Want Politics in Comics. Do You Really Mean It?

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I’m late to the game. Because I dare to step away from the feed (an archaic practice) I missed the latest comics controversy by a few days. Daniel Warren Johnson (from here on out abbreviated to DWJ), in the midst of promoting Absolute Batman 2025 Annual #1—where Black Metal Batman reportedly battles some variant of white nationalist—posted commissioned art of Death Metal Batman putting an ICE agent in one helluva sleeper hold (or rear naked choke, as someone with military experience let us know).

On X (the everything app) the pavlovian response was amped up for an art post. You might think X is rightwing, but that would be wrong. It’s terminally online e-rightwing—groypers, BAPists, neo-reactionaries, raw gay nationalists, monarch lovers, night owls, and countless others—framing themselves as more sophisticated, aesthetically appealing, meme-worthy and hipper than the conservative boomers and baws I grew up around. If you’re unaware of most of these subcultures consider ye blessed, oh sweet summer normie. Most of them will be irrelevant in a vibe shift or three anyway.

Off in the outskirts is comics Xitter, much of which is relatively normie. I say relatively, because there’s always some weird internecine warfare in the crowdfunding space I couldn’t care less about. Some fans are still obsessed with woke and owning the libs, partying like it’s 2017. There are also still libs and leftists who haven’t completely left for Bluesky, because that’s the only website that manages to be both a dumpster fire and boring as hell. And then there are those who just post vintage comics and random thoughts about comics (shyly raises hand) because we actually like comics.

But when something erupts, like this DWJ thing, I just love lurking to watch these factions come together for a communal clusterfuck. I’m here for the lulz from all quarters. And the lulz are to be had, because the OVERreaction is always worth breaking out the popcorn for.

I’m content. I’m a blissful lurker. I’m a zen buddhist kamikaze hamster flying into space. Space hamster. The replies are full of lulz. Cue Batman shooting commies (not the original dialogue, he was shooting explosive-carrying dolphins, who might have been commies. Sad!). Cue Batman lecturing on police brutality. Cue slow-mo Grok Batman putting an Anteefa in a chokehold. Cue DWJ being deemed Reddit (the worst thing you can call someone on X). Don’t think he’ll see any of this, poasters, he likely doesn’t even check his X account.

The current comics scene mostly exists in my peripherals, but DWJ’s work always caught my attention. He’s good. The Paul Pope influence is pretty obvious. Also he—along with James Harren—injected more manga into the American bloodstream. And that’s not a bad thing. His work is lively and kinetic. I’ll catch the occasional DDubs drawing stream because his process is quick, raw, spontaneous, and has a lack of preciousness I aspire too.

That DWJ could trigger such an outrage of the day makes it all the more amusing. He always came off as mild-mannered to me, the cool guy who tactfully avoids discussing anything contentious to keep good vibes. And in an industry where most shout their prog commandments from the mountaintop he presented himself as relatively apolitical to my knowledge. His Transformers series was one of the few I’ve heard praise of on those rightwing comic YouTube channels because it wasn’t le woke.

My cynical side tends to ascribe calculation to controversial moves in arts and entertainment, that explicit or coded political statements are used to garner attention in this highly polarized era. After all, it is an attention economy. As of this writing, DWJ’s X post has 11.1 million views, 173k likes, 24k retweets, and 2.3k replies. And he likely garnered a very good price for the sketch (sold at New York Comic Con). Not bad in a field where many struggle to gain traction at all.

But artists are a special breed, less-driven by calculation than idealistic impulse. I suspect in DWJ’s case ideals are mainly driving him (along with that sweet commission cash). He obviously feels strongly enough to post the drawing on X (the everything app) and alienate right-leaning fans. Many artists have a crossed-line where they feel the impulse to express their views in their work, for Frank Miller it was 9/11, for Dave Sim it was when he discovered women are telepathic and can siphon all rational ability from men. Since I’m a solipsistic bastard my moment could be on affordable health insurance, as a sudden condition attacking my fuckin’ legs forces me to take $7,000 shots. But I won’t be drawing any self appointed-vigilantes fighting the health insurance industry anytime soon, that’s far too on-the-nose.

I’m of the school that anyone can draw whatever the fuck they want. Artists especially need the space to roam. I’ll afford that to any creator, including Frank Miller going off on Al-Qaeda, or Dave Sim jumping down the rabbit hole (he called women voids before the internet labeled them foids). And no one needs to remind Robert Crumb to draw whatever the fuck he wants. And I don’t put DWJ in the same category as the woketard comics of yesteryear (2015-early 2020s) because it’s less engineered and comes from an honest place (and is drawn much better).

DWJ’s motives become more apparent in this quote from a recent panel he did at San Diego Comic-Con where he talked about Absolute Batman 2025 Annual #1:

“I don’t know, man, it’s just Batman beating up white nationalists,” he said when asked to share something about the story. “I’m not exactly a subtle storyteller... But I’m angry and it’s coming out in these next 30 pages.”

Yeah, not subtle, I’m not sure of the content of the book yet, but the cover looks like the literal KKK. Comics ideological interpretation is on perpetual 1940s Schomburg mode. If DWJ spent any time on X (the everything app) he would observe that the average contemporary white nationalist is not in the KKK, the contemporary white nationalist is … gay.

But an interview from The Comics Journal sheds more light on what motivated DWJ, and his lack of subtlety:

“I think that there are, at the very least, truths that I still believe in very strongly that originate from my faith, but I would hope are pretty universal, that will translate through the work that I make. But again, I’m not very subtle in any kind of work that I make. I can’t help it. It’s embarrassing how unsubtle I am.”

Subtlety in comics can be overrated anyway. We’re talking a medium of caricature, crude symbolism, and capeshit. But it could use more mystery (more on that later).

Of course many in fandom would argue my appeal to free expression is a bit of a copout here, as DWJ is using a well established classic character to make a political statement. I already know my fellow vintage comic enthusiasts response: Batman wouldn’t do that, Batman is supposed to work with law enforcement. But as the current capeshit appreciators remind us: this isn’t Batman, this is ABSOLUTE Batman, a Batman not restrained by norms, boundaries or laws (Trump supporting comic fans jump in to point out this is not a good look).

These are the sort of rarefied discussions comic fans breathe for. It’s debatable if medieval theologians actually argued over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but it’s a fact that comic fans can spend hours arguing over the Grecian heroics and virtue ethics of a man who dresses in a bat suit and beats the shit out of people after-hours. It’s in the middle of these conversations that I realize that I read comics (capeshit, anyway) mainly for the pictures.

But some fans just don’t like creators fucking with our MODERN MYTHOLOGY. Fair enough. (I have some ideas about the relevancy of the American postwar conception of superheroes, but that’s something I’m still working out.)

I’m less interested bout the particulars of this controversy, which will be likely forgotten by the time you read this, and more about what it says about how the current US political climate effects comics. There’s a well-meaning breed of comic enjoyer that longs for the days of apolitical comics, the time when fans were unlikely to know a creator’s politics. (For the record, I’m a paleoliberal with Posadist sympathies. When the inevitable controversy erupts around me let it be known I’m a civil libertarian who wants New Deal economic policies for the dolphins.)

I sympathize with the appeal to escapism, entertainment as a vacation from the turmoil and complexities of the world. And yeah, I also found the ham-fisted insertion of leftoid politics in entertainment during peak woke cringe as hell (still waiting for a comeback of the New Warriors characters Snowflake and Safespace). I managed to mostly ignore that era of comics, thankfully (as well as the rightoid YouTube reaction to it).

But the progressive argument that comics were always political isn’t totally off the mark, examples abound: WW2 propaganda, Stan Lee was practically an Ess-Jay-Dubyah in some of his soapbox columns, and the legendary (infamous?) Green Lantern #76 where an old black man lets our hero know that he’s done plenty for the orange skins and purple skins but not enough for the black skins (timeless cringe).

But what we have now is a totally different caliber. Politics infects discourse on nearly any subject (at least for those with the luxury to argue online all day). Politics is a team sport and entertainment, people log on to love or hate watch their favorite characters (Fuentes, Candace, Hasan, Vaush) and weaponize whatever bed their ideological enemies shat that day. This real life drama is usually more interesting than most contemporary entertainment, I’m not gonna lie.

As far as pop culture, many fans say they don’t want politics therein but I’m not so sure. Even a piece of fluff like the latest Superman movie is labored over with a fine tooth comb for signs of wokeness and apostasy. The discourse around certain works often gains momentum, becoming bigger than the work merits. Almost everything deemed worthy of online discourse has a political quality or is given one, anything that strives to be apolitical is usually considered bland and forgettable. Many are electrified by the perpetual culture war around pop culture, it does give some meaning in a world increasingly devoid of it.

Where does this leave art? As Peter Simeti of Alterna Comics summed it up in a reply to one of my posts, Art asks a question to the viewer, propaganda tells the viewer an answer. Taking that definition into account, a lot of viewers nowadays want propaganda even though they need art. Most great art can’t help but to reflect an artist’s politics, whether it’s by Moore, Faulkner, Kubrick, Pynchon or Cormac McCarthy. But their art isn’t typically didactic, it holds questions and is full of mystery. But I’m not so sure the contemporary viewer can handle too much mystery. The contemporary viewer suffers from direction brain, the overwhelming impulse to place a work in slot A or slot B.

As for the artist, in the case of DWJ, his piece is hardly mysterious, but it fills a market. It’s evident in intent, it easily fits a slot. It could even be said to be a piece of (well drawn) propaganda. Polarization, traumatic political events, abuses of power, injustice, and the relentless feed will continue to drive artists to use their craft as a conduit for political statements. The memetic nature of social media makes it the natural habitat for partisan ‘art’, the vast majority is cringe regardless of ideology, and is usually not anywhere as well-crafted as DWJ’s work. But it’s inevitable as the tide.

I’m not immune to it, I’m averse to any form of authoritarianism or conformity, and both disgusted and amused by the shitshow of postmodern politics. Didn’t like the old boss and DEFINITELY not the new one. When politics inevitably creeps into my art it will just end up pissing everyone off. For how to navigate it all I consult the oracle (Robert Crumb, naturally). From a 1988 TCJ interview:

Yeah, I agree that whatever my politics are, they’re in there somehow, but I think whenever I gave in to the temptation to get on the soapbox in my comics, it was a bad mistake. Trying to preach propaganda at people is a heavy-handed approach that just doesn’t work too well for me. I always knew that it wasn’t too good an idea, but sometimes I would give in to it anyway. I used to catch hell from people who were heavily into left-wing ideals, who said it was your responsibility as a person with those ideals to preach them to the world. If you didn’t, then you were “part of the problem.” There was always pressure to do that, but I never felt at home with it.

At the end of the day it’s each artist’s prerogative how to navigate politics in their art, if at all, and up to their audience as to how to respond. If their posts are to be believed (and not performative, like so much online behavior) some are claiming that they’ll never buy another work by DWJ. Fair enough, their money, their choice. But in looking at more of DWJ’s work for this article, I now want to buy everything he worked on—by not buying many contemporary comics I’ve definitely missed some gems.

And that’s the beautiful thing about art. Trueheads always come back to the art. There are a lot of artists I’m sure I disagree with politically but will dig their art ‘til the end (I was gonna use Dave Sim as an example but I don’t know what the FUCK he’s on about most of the time).

There’s content, then there’s form. That’s why this is my favorite response to DWJ’s piece: