>What if a fascist, autocratic President took over the United States? And what if that President lost California, the sixth largest economy on Earth, by nearly 2-to-1…a margin of almost 3 1/2 million votes? What if the day after that President took power, the largest mass demonstration in history occurred, and the state with the largest turnout was California. And then, the following week, two of the largest international airports in the world, California’s LAX and SFO, were blockaded by protesters? What if California refused to be ruled?
Matteo Pizzolo has talked to Bleeding Cool about his new series for Black Mask, Calexit, with his Young Terrorists co-creator Amancay Nahuelpan
>Ever since I was a kid reading V For Vendetta or a teenage shop clerk hand-selling Dirty Plotte, I’ve always believed comics and punk rock are the preeminent art forms for sharing important, and sometimes subversive, ideas. Now, more than ever in my lifetime, many of us are looking for everyday heroes who will take a stand in the face of regressive forces. Only in comics could Amancay and I do a project like CALEXIT, an urgent story of right now that we can create collaboratively within the activist community and do so without any corporate interference. The fact that the comic market will support challenging storytelling and that we have the platform to create without any restrictions is a true blessing. I consider it our responsibility to use that freedom in a positive, constructive, and fearless way. Even though CALEXIT has a bleak starting point, it’s a hopeful book. It’s not about divisiveness, it’s about solidarity and inclusion, and it’s only possible for us to tell this story because of the utterly unique support of the comic market”
>This is the world of CALEXIT, the new ongoing comic book series launching this May from Black Mask Studios, a timely title about resisting oppression, punching Nazis, protecting each other, kicking ass, and demanding liberty for all.
>This is a special moment in the history of comics. We re experiencing a real renaissance of progressive and political comic books and graphic novels,” said Matteo Pizzolo co-founder of Black Mask Studios and the writer of CALEXIT. “It’s not by accident that the first comic to win a National Book Award is the incredible MARCH by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell or that images of anti-fascist superheroes are capturing the imaginations of people around the world right now. There’s never been a more diverse range of comics that speak to our politics here at home or to the unrest around the world.”
>In CALEXIT, the citizens of California will struggle to seize power back from an autocratic government. The ongoing series tells the story of Jamil, a 25 year old courier (aka smuggler), and Zora, a 27-year old leader in the Pacific Coast Sister Cities Resistance, who escape together from a prison camp in Occupied Los Angeles, where martial law has been in place for the past year ever since America’s demagogue President signed an executive order to deport all immigrants, and California responded by proclaiming itself a Sanctuary State. Each issue of CALEXIT will also include non-fiction material about local sustainability and grassroots campaigning for 2018 elections.
Wyatt Long
Lol, yeah sure. One state v the US military. That car wall/barricade would be blown apart in minutes by artillery. Some of the largest military bases in the USA are in California (San Diego) or next to it (Nevada)
Hunter Robinson
>“I cant think of a time when confronting the status quo with progressive, political art has been more important,” said Brett Gurewitz co-founder Black Mask “Black Mask Studios has consistently focused on stories that are both entertaining and have a real message driving them. With OCCUPY COMICS we published stories devoted to the goals and themes of the Occupy movement. Since then, we published stories about living under a fascist state (GODKILLER), about fighting celebrity politicians (YOUNG TERRORISTS) and gentrification (THE DREGS). We’ve published the 2017 GLAAD nominee KIM & KIM, and the creators of the breakout hit BLACK have donated proceeds to Black Lives Matter
Ryan King
Rest of the nation's electricity prices would plumet. More water for midwestern states since it would no longer need to be diverted to Californa desert farms. Reduction welfare burden
Robert Sanchez
lmao where did they get all those guns? they made them illegal in Commiefornia
Jordan Myers
>everybody is antifa >they are the good guys
sigh
Hudson Ramirez
Southern California gets it water from out of state and they import energy, they would be easy to just blockade/traditional siege sort of wait out.
Dylan Peterson
Probably stole them.
Christian Diaz
they just had to put a race mix couple in didnt they?
Evan Gonzalez
Also minor earthquakes in Arizona, and Nevada from the people there dancing in the streets.
Adam Barnes
>California exits the Union >Rest of US diverts the rivers which feed it away >California suffers the worst drought ever >comes begging for water from the union >has to rejoin union with all voting rights rescinded
Dylan Hall
how dare him cite V for Vendetta
burn in hell
BURN IN HELL
Christian Sanchez
>cali has a large economy because it outsources it's electricity, food, and water costs to all of the other states >cali wants to leave
I would love to see california start succession proceedings, and IMMEDIATELY lose 95% of their silicon valley companies.
David Cook
>Antifa just wearing their ninja clothes with no body armor
Light em up boys.
Asher Allen
I would pop a freedom boner watching the footage of antifa members losing limbs to gunfire.
Landon Williams
Itll never be as good as pic related.
Ryder Lewis
Good, hopefully the State of Jefferson secedes and take half of Silicon Valley with them.
Christian Carter
...
Kayden Martin
Wouldn't California devolve into state of civil war? I imagine without food coming in and without traditional economy there not only be starvation but food rotting in the fields.
Funny how these guys are trying to sell to a demographic that just don't give a shit about comic books.
Colton Allen
The conservative areas of cal are also the bread basket of the state. The resulting naval blockade and trade embargo would wreck the revolt in weeks.
Ayden White
>yfw no one buys it
Nathan Edwards
>Comic books and punk rock. >Subversive.
Kayden Barnes
I also imagine anyone with money in state of California would up and leave regardless their ideology. Those who have would not dare risk losing all in such foolish manner.
Maybe at one point in time punk rock was musically subversive but it is stale and rigid thanks to clowns like this.
Liam Fisher
can't wait to kill all these traitors in my state and rape the decent looking ones
Colton Reyes
Meanwhile in Los Angeles, California today
>Gunman who killed Whittier officer had fatally shot another man hours earlier, police say >Police have not identified the shooter pending the ongoing investigation, but described him as a Los Angeles gang member who had been released on parole within the last two weeks and had many tattoos, including on his neck and face. He was driving a stolen car from East L.A.
10 internet points to whoever can guess his race
the communist L.A. Times refuses to release his name and race, but ABC 7's camera got a glimpse of the shooter as they loaded him into an ambulance.
Logan Young
Don't they know guns are useless against a government with hydrogen bombs smhtbh
Julian Lewis
>
Grayson Hill
Calibros please don't go, I don't want to bring my passport just to get into Wasteland Weekend :
Ethan Powell
>Jamil >Zora
I don't even care it's interracial anymore, those names indicate autism now anyways
Xavier Green
A lesbian interracial couple at that.
Nicholas Gray
...
Eli Perez
in reality
the US could shut off the water and 90% of the state would die of thirst
most of the farms wouldnt work
Only those who were aggresive enough (cartel members, hangs, the few vestiges of police) would be kept alive
so the population of CALI would be reduced to a few hundred thousand at best, enough to clean up by the US army
Benjamin Moore
>young Terrorists >considered cool in a comic if they are "liberals" >considered uncool in real life if they are "Islamic" Ladies and Gentlemen: double standards in a nutshell.
Eli Collins
You see that pile of cars the guy who draws unrealistic cartoons thinks is an effective blockade? There is a vehicle to take care of that in a hurry...
Parker Rivera
I LIVE IN CALIFORNIA
PLEASE DON'T ABANDON ME :(
Moving out of this liberal shit hole as soon as I have the chance.
Why bother when an artillery shell could clean up the whole lot?
Noah Russell
I'd sign up for the California Reclamation/Pacification Operation in a heartbeat tbqh
Charles Torres
this.
why the fuck do liberals think they'd even have guns in this scenario?
Aaron Gomez
>Why bother Fuck it, it was built, may as well use it.
Tyler Barnes
God I hope the US government doesn't keep giving them water out of pity/PR purposes if Calexit actually happens.
Jaxson Howard
Some people just need killing.
Alexander Green
>I would pop a freedom boner watching the footage of antifa members losing limbs to gunfire.
A version of Calexit from a realistic, non-Cuck viewpoint would be an awesome comic.
Jonathan Rogers
Wait. Why did California build a wall if #noborders?
Landon Mitchell
I thought California was against building walls.
Mason Martinez
>ywn join a Jeffersonian freikorps to purge antifa scum Why even live?
Caleb Turner
The shovel guy in that picture makes it an accurate representation of the video game Verdun, except the other three guys aren't back in the starting trench "sniping."
We'll use it for the mass graves. Also, if Calexit were to happen, how long would it take for the tolerant liberals to start genociding people?
Hudson Lopez
>ywn pillage and rape with the russian army why even continue breathing?
Jaxon Lee
>Matteo Pizzolo >Amancay Nahuelpan
Definitely not American names.
Adrian Gomez
Get genocided by La Raza you mean.
This would mandate a humanitarian intervention of course >:^)
Blake Cruz
That's an awfully bigoted thing to say.
Nathan Lewis
A that might take a while to coordinate. Say, 4-5 months. It would be a shame if we were too late.
Jaxson Rivera
The only way that California could realistically secede is if it agreed to give large portions of material to a foreign nation. Preferably a nuclear foreign nation.
They would have to basically become a province of Russia or China. Wouldn't that be a redpilling for these cucks? They would find out what tyrannical government means when they're lined up and shot.
Jonathan Gonzalez
>leftists take-over California >refuse to let FBI/ICE do their job >leftists refuse to let Cali state police do their job "because cops is rayciss n sheeeit" >remember that California is full of savage beaners and niggers >white law structure collapses, Cali turns into Somalia
We may not even need to invade. The nigger/spic gangs will do the work for us.
Colton Hill
I know comrade. Calfaggots have know idea the fire they are fucking with if they destabilize that part of the country.
Austin Wilson
>Calexit >not Caleave
god
and i thought ending all controversies in -gate was retarded
Thomas Rivera
please let this happen...
they will be so dependent on us for resources
they dont even know that la is naturally a desert
they dont know that all the grass will die in a month without water
then all the dust will get in the air and they will die from dusty lungs
David Reyes
The russians that invade the millisecond CA secedes won't allow it tho
Jaxon Hughes
Where did they get those rifles with the things that go up?
Luis Reyes
As if California is some sort of ideologically unified place. They would have a civil war if they left the US
Christopher Williams
Who the fuck?
What kind of person openly celebrating California being taken over by mestizo trash?
Christopher Gray
...
Brayden Gutierrez
Hypothetically, if California secedes what would happen to the people living there that want to continue being part of the United States?
Caleb Davis
How stupid have you be to think that a bunch of spoiled brats could stop an actual army with decades of experience fighting insurgents in the sandbox?
and if the much evul president wouldn't want his soldiers to shoot his people he could always call upon NATO mercenaries - Poland alone would immediately go for it to score bro points and maybe even get some actual military hardwer
This idea is so dumb that I just can't even
Benjamin Ward
Join the unionists resistance, brother!
Brayden Campbell
Refugee crisis
Jordan James
...
Jaxson Perry
>we dont want you trump as our president we will succeed!!
>HELP TRUMP WE HAVE A FLOOD AND CANT HANDLE IT
fucking california i swear to god
Asher Parker
I liked the premise and the Academy Awards arc was great, but Covington came across a little Aspie. "Handwriting on the wall" kept coming up despite it not being conventional English, "The Old Man kept begging people to put down the nachos and stop typing on the Internet" broke in mid-plot ten times. Most of the ops are laboriously planned in speech by the Volunteers, only for the action to be fairly weak (only exceptions being Portland and the Academy Awards).
Oh, and "like an evil Elvis / like an evil Mister Rogers" was tired pretty quickly.
I'm a firm believer in the Imperative, but at least mechanically I hated the books.
Evan Nguyen
I just wish it was happening in a Blue part of the state