Occupy the world of comics!

Above, excerpts from Buster Brown At The barricades: Foment in the funnies and comics as counter-culture, a long essay written by Alan Moore to support the Occupy movement and serialised in the three issues of Occupy Comics, published in 2013 by Black Mask.

Alan Moore: [...] The present generation, those who mostly (although by no means exclusively) make up a large part of the modern protest movements, are the first who've grown up since the comic book upheavals of the 1980s and therefore the first who've grown up in a world where comics were a natural and accepted feature of the cultural landscape. This is perhaps evidenced by their gleeful appropriation of comic book iconography and highly-visible cartoon theatrics. It would seem that there has never been a generation for whom comics as a tool or an effective weapon are more eminently suited, nor a time of social crisis better able to lend comics a true sense of urgency and purpose. Times like these are arguably exactly those which comics were created to engage with.

So, by all means, occupy the world of comics. Occupy the doorsteps and the lobbies of the industry if you've a mind to...certainly the comic industry is as deserving of such treatment as is any other greedy and unscrupulous business concern...although it might be thought that mainstream comics are best left to manage their own imminent destruction, this being the one task which they've demonstrated a real attitude for over the last seven decades. A more positive and useful protest might be to support the families of the true titans of the medium, the cheated giants like Jerry Siegel or Joe Shuster or Jack Kirby or the scores of others that have never received fair remuneration or redress, in their courageous efforts to confront these massive corporate entities with their immense resources and battalions of lawyers. [...]

An even more effective long-term strategy would surely be to occupy the medium itself. The many glories of comic strips past have never been so instantly accessible to the would-be comic creator, giving him or her the means to steep themselves, to educate themselves, in an astonishing array of concepts and techniques, from Little Nemo through to Jimmy Corrigan. Thus armed, with nothing more than a blank page and some variety of drawing implement, dissenting voices can refine and broadcast their ideas more widely and compellingly, while at the same time possibly making their protest into an enduring work of art that can enrich the medium and the broader culture in which it exists. Today's technology has made self-publishing more easily achievable, and in addition there are an increasing range of small and honourable publishers with a more flexible approach to new material, allowing access to new formats and fresh concepts which perhaps have a potential to transform the medium.

[...] If you care about what you are saying, if you seek a more effective way of saying it, then pick up that brush, pencil, pen, that mouse or even that discarded cardboard box out in the alleyway and pour your heart, your mind, your self into as many little panels as it takes to make your statement. You may find it opens up modes of expression and dissent that you have previously not considered or imagined.

You may even find you've got yourself an occupation.

Alan Moore
Northampton,
May-June 2012