Main Menu

The Strangeness of Brendan McCarthy

Started by ming, 15 May, 2012, 10:20:20 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

blackmocco

"...and it was here in this blighted place, he learned to live again."

www.BLACKMOCCO.com
www.BLACKMOCCO.blogspot.com

ming

I started this thread with the title 'The Strangeness...' specifically because it began life to point out that the fantastic blog of the same name, put together and run by John K, had come back to life after some time in the wilderness.  Taking 'The Strangeness...' to mean anything else is the work of your own twisted minds.  My posts in the thread only continue since I felt it was worth sharing some bits and pieces of Brendan's art, especially since the blog ceased to be updated.

As for Brendan's views on the media, politics, conspiracy theories, the occult, or whatever, I don't feel that this thread is the place to discuss them.  Brendan speaks his mind (on Facebook) on a wide range of subjects and you either engage with it or you don't, but posting a blind link here to a screenshot of a section of Facebook comments and casually labeling him as a racist without any initial attempt at discourse is pretty fucking weak.  Why just the link?  Why not pen some thoughts about your opinions on what he said at the same time?  Bottom line for me - not in this thread, please.

You probably should have just posted that link in the 'Aiiieeee!!! Blakeee Pentax!!!' thread and have had done with it.  Or not.

Meanwhile, back to the art.


JOE SOAP

Quote from: Richmond Clements on 08 November, 2013, 06:47:01 PM
Quote from: JOE SOAP on 08 November, 2013, 06:38:53 PM

I go to Brendan McCarthy for great art; I don't go to him for sociology.

Does that count for everyone, or just artist you like?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6217390.stm

Not what I'd consider 'great art' (or McCarthy-esque) but if someone else likes it I'd have no problem with them liking it so I suppose it counts for everyone; to each their own.




COMMANDO FORCES

Next time you should use this to inform the world of your discovery  :lol:


Skullmo

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 08 November, 2013, 06:07:34 PM


Unfortunately it seems to be anything that appears on this forum is grist to the mill for Bleeding Cool who has now added it to its daily ablutions .


Aghhhh I hate the internet.

It's a joke. I was joking.

13school

#275
Well, it was definitely doing the rounds on twitter 24 hours or so before Bleeding Cool reported it - I saw fairly well known comics critics in the US tweeting about it 8am yesterday / Friday (Australian time), and was still checking back here at 1am Saturday night to see if Richard's post here would get anyone talking. It'd be a huge shame if people here started to feel like they couldn't bring up or talk about "controversial" issues (in any thread) because BC might be watching.

The big surprise for me isn't really the beliefs themselves (I'm a fan of writers and artists I'm fairly sure hold views I wouldn't agree with if I knew them personally), but that they seem so at odds with the work he produces. I mean, once you've read Frank Millers' work his personal beliefs aren't exactly a shock.

It's also a bit of a shame that amongst at least some of the US critics 2000AD's done so well at winning over in the last couple of years this kind of thing is the kind of thing that's really going to stick.

M.I.K.

Quote from: blackmocco on 08 November, 2013, 06:14:58 PM
Quote from: Richmond Clements on 08 November, 2013, 06:06:41 PM
So... Frank Miller spouts right wing nonsense he's fair game, but if it's someone you like..?

And that's the difference: Miller spouts it. At every opportunity. A snippet of a private conversation is hardly the same situation.

I saw another 'private conversation' a few weeks ago when somebody on my friends list liked a post by someone on his friends list, and he decided to moan about 'liberal leftist agendas' or somesuch in the comments bit of that too.

And yes, I think people should be allowed to debate his (or anyone else's) views, but a separate thread is probably called for, because this one was originally and specifically intended to be about the art blog.

ming

Brendan's response to Rich Johnson slapping a 'right wing' label on him (from Facebook, but as a courtesy I cleared this with Brendan before posting)...

Just got labeled "Right Wing" by Rich Johnson at Bleeding Cool, a popular comics site. He has cherry-picked a bunch of my social media postings critiquing left wing PC cliches and ignored those that don't fit his narrative (anti war, anti state surveillance, pro-Palestinian, pro GLBT, etc). I would also say that my work in comics has over the years, been ahead of the curve in its use of ethnic, gay and disabled characters... Check out my cover for DC Comics' SOLO for example, with a transexual hero on the front cover. Not forgetting Rogan Gosh, Mirkin The Mystic, Rudcliff and Williams and Skin from decades ago.

Had he bothered to ask me what my politics were, I would have replied "Radical Moderate'. I loathe the extremes of both political wings equally as they historically lead to extreme totalitarian states and mass murder by Governments. Seeing as the Politically Correct Left are the new cultural establishment, I feel it's my satirical duty to challenge and ridicule these bores. You can do that without being "right wing" y'know...

As for the race politics of the left, it has certainly set the agenda socially. Nobody would blink if you featured a stereotypical inbred, buck-toothed white southerner in a comic, but should you include a southern black watermelon-munching dimwit, you will be censored immediately as a 'racist'. Trying to get lefties to see that the white stereotype is racist too is an uphill struggle. Still, I wear my 'White Privilege' wristband with the proscribed shame.

One of the annoying aspects of dealing with so-called left wing comic book writers is that while they spouted their anti-Thatcher cliches on BC (when she was buried a while back), many are happy to cut deals with comic book publishers excluding the artists from the rights and so pocketing any extra big money for themselves. These people are true Thatcherites, and also hypocritical, greedy fuckers.


Anyway, my basic stance remains the same.  This thread is NOT the place to discuss these issues.  Can we split the thread and just dump the recent posts in a new one (preferably without the words 'racist' or 'right wing' in the title)?  I'm disappointed about that initial post of yours, Richmond - an ill-considered and inappropriate knee-jerk response, and I suspect if you'd looked through this thread properly you would have recognised that this wasn't the place for it.

TordelBack

'S your thread, Ming, but I think this has been instructive all the same.  And thanks for posting Brendan's response to BC:  that's the active questioning mind I expected to see, whether I agree with him on the particulars or not.

Jimmy Baker's Assistant

Brendan's response is pretty well argued, although I harbour reservations about anyone who uses the phrase "Politically Correct Left".

Still, he's a decent artist and entitled to his views.

I am more dismayed by the repeated attempts here to brush the issue under the carpet. I hope the discussion stays exactly where it belongs, eg. in this thread.

Richmond Clements

QuoteBrendan's response is pretty well argued

Bollocks it is. For someone who says he isn't right wing, he doesn't half go on about the left a lot...

Jimmy Baker's Assistant

Quote from: Richmond Clements on 09 November, 2013, 09:42:46 AM
QuoteBrendan's response is pretty well argued

Bollocks it is. For someone who says he isn't right wing, he doesn't half go on about the left a lot...

Any criticism of my opinion is clearly off topic and doesn't belong in this thread ;)

The Prodigal

Quote from: TordelBack on 08 November, 2013, 04:46:03 PM
People say stupid things sometimes, we all do it and we always have: it's just now we do it in writing in a permanent public medium. 

Sometimes we say stupid things because we haven't thought through our opinion, sometimes it's because our opinion is based on poor information or unexamined sources, sometimes because it touches on a personal hobby-horse* and we just can't let ourselves back down from a stupid particular for fear we are undermining our wider belief. 

Is this tendency to say stupid things a major factor in the ongoing existence of racism?  You betcha. 

Does doing it make you a racist?  Not necessarily.  You could just be one of those people who said a stupid thing.

Which is, after all, all of us.



*e.g. a perceived agenda-driven reporting bias in the media, as in this case.

Wisdom.

Steven Denton

As is argued in the screen cap, Brendan has chosen to put forward his views on a leftist bias in social media and portrayal or race as a motivating factor in crime rather than talk about the stand your ground law.

His argument is slightly odd, because being liberal and being on the political left (socialist) are in no way linked and mainstream news media has the far right (Fox) and the right (CNN) in America. Social media is not a left wing conspiracy it's your 'friends' sharing things that interest them, if you have socialist liberal friends you get a lot of socialist liberal posts if you have rightwing Christian friends you get rightwing Christian posts, if you have both you get fighting.

I don't think he comes across as racist but he does come across as some one who has more liberal friends on his social media feed then he is comfortable with.

Brendan McCarthy's more considered response was far better constructed then his social media rant but you would expect that. His grouping together of large swaths of people as the hipster brown shirt left is disconcerting but we all do it (see my above comments about the Christian right... what about the atheist liberal right?)

As a public figure McCarthy should probably think though his arguments a little better before posting them on social media and maybe count to ten before posting.

This hasn't soured his art for me and I am both liberal and on the political left. 

MenschMaschine

I guess  to claim purity of thread is a bit nonsensical. More often than never we do leap from one topic to another in a same thread. The fact it's touching upon a delicate subject shouldn't be an excuse to avoid it.
Mr.Clements has the right to give his opnion as much Mr. McCarthy does. Instead of censured him, one should embrace the discussion with no fears. Surely we'll all come out of it with something to think about.
That said, an artist's body of work IS in fact influenced by his political/philosofical and whatever one might come up with,views. And for me the ideal artist is the one independent enough to trash everyone, both sides, no compromises. Otherwise you end up being a pedestrian troubador singing the glories of whoever is in power.
Leni Riefenstahl is aesthetically brilliant, she has in many ways revolutionized cinema. The fact she did films for the Nazis ruined everything she has achieved, hence, no legacy left. (no pun intended)
Jose Saramago is a Nobel prize winner who joyfully endorse the Cuban dictatorship, he's ideological idiot whose body of work no one will remember in 20 years.
By the way, does someone still remember Frank Miller? Aside that horrendous Dredd cover? ;)
Is naive to afirm  you can enjoy an artistic piece solely by it aesthetically qualities without be, even in a unconscious way, touched upon by its inherent message. That's why an independent artist is so important to me. Someone who will present the farcical dicotomy between political powers as it  is. Someone to show you the game how it's played and let you free to think on where is your place in this confuse world. That's what I'd consider a poignant piece of art. Not something preaching you in how you should think to be accepted by the mainstream.