I promised a couple of readers the full interview of Chuck Dixon from my Federalist article. It’s short, as I knew going in that I had a pretty dense article with a lot of other information, but Chuck provides some great, thorough responses:
Do you have any thoughts on Marvel’s only hiring hard left writers who openly lambast the President, conservatives and Christians?
It’s about as dumb as can be. Comics are, traditionally, a universal form of entertainment meant to appeal to the broadest possible audience of readers. Narrowly fixing your material to appeal only to the far left leaves a whole lot of people out of that equation. And not only those who disagree with the far left but those who are apolitical or anyone looking for escapist entertainment.
And putting political considerations over talent is a terrible mistake unless you’re giving the comics away at rallies.
How has this mentality affected you?
I am blacklisted at Marvel and have been for over fifteen years. So, the affect has been direct on me resulting in less potential work, less potential income. A large segment of readership is shut out for me and Punisher fans all over the world have cause to feel sad.
How do you think that this lockstep SJW mindset has contributed to comics’ decline?
Falling sales. The numbers are there. I think that Marvel, in particular, misjudged things. I think they thought they could repeat the Obama stunts that temporarily buoyed sales in 2008 an 2009 on some titles. But Trump-hate is not much of a sales motivator, as it turns out. They would have done better to do some comics that embraced Trump. But even their cynicism is ideologically motivated.
Why do you think the culture of comics became so toxic?
Comics over all are fine. But you have these pockets of apparatchiks beavering away to get their talking points out there coming from the mouths of iconic characters. And the vast majority of editors are either left-leaning or willing to appear so in exchange for job security. They virtue signal with one hand and wave a paycheck in the other. There are a lot of conservatives on the creator end of this business. But they have to hide their opinions for fear of losing work. I was never able to do that.
Once again big thank you for Chuck Dixon to speaking with me for this article. His testimony provides a very real, human element to the tragedy that Marvel has wrought upon comic creators. I was pleased to find out about his prose fiction last year and he is someone worth supporting, so do check out his work on Amazon.
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