Right. I talked about Jason Karns’ Fukitor before, one of a new breed of independent comics that wallows in the dumb sexism, violence and racism of an earlier generation of comics; a 21st century Gun Fury, if that comic had gotten loving writeups in The Comics Journal. Charles Reece took exception to what I wrote, saying that he wasn’t “the least bit symathetic, for example, to Matthew Wisse’s [sic] view on transgression”, reducing my argument to:
In another words, something is transgressive (and “daring”) only when it violates another’s expectations, not his own committed leftism. Transgression is pissing off some imagined conservative, never the leftist who wants to understand why the other hates us so.
Which really missed the point. It’s not that Karns violates my own “committed leftism”, it’s that nothing he has done is actually all that dangerous; his work is about as trangressive as a Rambo movie, only with more gore and tits. If you use racist, ooga boga stereotypes “ironically”, you better use them to dish stronger fare than “American ninjas versus terrorists”.
To be honest, a lot of people confuse the use of racism, misogyny, torture or sexual violence with transgression, but popular culture is already drenched in these, so how could it be transgressive? All Karns has done is make it more blatant and gory. That really isn’t enough to make it interesting.
And again, it isn’t brave to indulge in the same racism that you can get anywhere already, just by smearing a thin layer of irony on top of it, nor is it cool to pat yourself on the back for enjoying this sort of thing because you are sure you can enjoy ironically and all the racism isn’t real; even though Karns said it was.
Charles Reece
October 28, 2013 at 11:26 amMartin,
Sorry about calling you Matthew. I’ve corrected it. Should always do multiple checks on names, because I never remember them correctly.
I’m not real hung up on whether the comic is “properly” transgressive (the irony there), but I note that this was yours and others’ concern, not Karns’. And he certainly upsets a bunch of people (transgression doesn’t have to produce a positive result in the receiver, nor does it have to be accepted, nor does it have to out-transgress previous transgressions). I’d probably say it has something of a transgressive edge, because it violates some of my moral categories for a humorous effect. However, the book doesn’t promise to be anything but a joking enjoyment of certain types of films with a lot of blood and titties. It’s clearly exploitation, which I’m not sure is all that different from transgression, except as marketing terms with different demographics. I can’t say I find De Sade particularly interesting or fun to read, but I’d still say there’s something transgressive there.
And, once again, Karns does do something more than many of his action film sources, he creates a distance from the hero. The detractors just don’t want to account for that, because it causes problems for their straight reading, as if the point of the book is simply advocate for bigotry.
Anyway, I’ll let you have the last word, since I’m tired of talking about the comic. I just wanted to express how someone might enjoy this kind of thing without being committed to the bigotry (and Karns never admits to be racist or that his comic is racist — not sure why everyone keeps repeating that). To me, Fukitor is fun, because I love the movies on which it is based.