You don’t get to the top by being complacent. You get there by fighting like hell. You take the hits, and you keep moving forward. You don’t let critics stop you. Critics complain because that’s what they do. If you’re a writer or artist that gives it all from the heart, you listen to the critics, and then decide if they’re worth listening to given what you want to do with your ideas. Great art comes from passion, not caution. And if Howard Chaykin is one thing, it’s that he’s not cautious. It gets in the way of getting things done.
What Howard Chaykin has done lately is called The Divided States of Hysteria , where he puts forth a cast that operates in our current politically dysfunctional world that exists on your radio, Internet, and television. In this PREVIEWSworld Exclusive, Mr. Chaykin explains his thinking at the time of this project, and we leave it to you, the reader, to do your own thinking about what he says here in this interview. And then we urge you to pre-order this book from Image Comics before you hear that it’s sold-out at the comic shops.
>Vince Brusio: Politics and comics aren’t regularly seen at the shops on Wednesday, but when a splash does occur it’s given us things like Rick Veitch’s The Big Lie or Frank Miller’s Holy Terror. Those two books, as examples, took on the topics of 9-11 and the war on terror. As the cover for issue #1 of The Divided States of Hysteria features a woman in a burka, and the burka replicates the design of the American flag, we can assume that your book is also going to focus on the subject of Islam and its relationship to America. The question is why are you going there? The subject is an incendiary one. So why are you jumping into the fire?
Howard Chaykin: With all due respect, this contributes to my near permanent state of simmering bitterness. This sort of thing happens in what is basically a one trick pony business. I seem to be relegated to a legacy that will apparently consist solely of the hackwork I did on Star Wars, and drawing oral sex.
I've been doing political material since the early 1980s, when after ten years of lameness and mediocrity, I found my narrative and visual voice with American Flagg! — a strident and enraged political satire that took place in the first third of the 21st century, but was all about the eighties in general, and the sort of country we'd become under the narcissism engendered by the Reagan administration.
You're talking to someone who's been called a "Left wing faggot" by some shmuck on the internet, after he read and apparently comprehended my reboot of The Challengers Of The Unknown.
City Of Tomorrow, a six-issue series I did for Wildstorm, is very much a reflection of the emergence of identity politics and politics in general.
I've not read Veitch's book, but Holy Terror left me feeling that Frank seemed to take the 9/11 criminal act by these murderers as a personal attack.
For the record, it's not a burka, but a niqab.
Easton Rodriguez
These characters were no more than plot devices to soothe one cohort or another — just as the current trend is no more than liberal self-congratulation for showing up. Characterization was no more evolved than, say, the guys who showed up behind the door in Mystery Date.
Today we have a ridiculous slew of hyphenates, each with more sensitive and tender feelings, begging to be hurt, than the other — and for the record, this idea that one has the right not to have one's feelings hurt has equal footing on the left and right.
The protagonists of The Divided States Of Hysteria are far from what anyone might identify as heroic in motivation. The antagonists operate, for the most part, from a perspective of genuine conviction and purpose. I might point out that only in comic books, and of course in comics' apparent literary equivalent, YA fiction, would such an issue be worth pondering.
So despite your assumption about The Divided States Of Hysteria is somehow just one more book about Islamic terrorism, rest easy and forget about it. Sure, there's an element here of that issue, but there really is so much more — I promise.
Asher Morris
Sounds like this is going to be full Chaykin, and therefore worth reading for entertainment potential even if shit.
Connor Lopez
>Vince Brusio: The book’s solicitation text offers how America is “enraged” and “terrified.” The cover to your book could be used as an example of what might stoke this rage. What does terrify people. Or someone could say that there’s no difference between the cover to your book and how Larry Flynt wore a diaper that was also designed like the American flag. What would you say to such a charge? How would you argue with such a critic that made this charge? Is it just simply that your cover is a precursor to the book? Or is there more to it?
Howard Chaykin: The America I live in is enraged and terrified. As I've indicated elsewhere, I haven't been this scared since I went to bed nightly presuming I'd be glowing ash by morning. And much of what it is that scares me is about the unavailability of a prevailing definition of what is an American. The right has apparently hijacked patriotism — even as it makes common treasonous cause with our great global foe — while the left (by which of course I mean the center, as the right has moved the needle so far as to make actual leftism invisible) seems incapable of defending a position that has made the lives of so many of the willfully ignorant who voted against it in this current debacle livable and possible.
My big terror right now is finding out what is the contemporary version of the Reichstag fire. In a nation where no one believes the news, where lies are accepted as long as they support a point-of-view, where rationality and expertise are held suspect as signs of treachery, I have little hope for a positive outcome.
And as for critics — really. We live in a country of profoundly uninformed, deeply opinionated anonymous creeps who have been led to believe that simply having an opinion entitles them to express it.
Ever since that "Left wing faggot" nonsense, I've made a pledge and promise to read nothing about me or my work, positive or negative.
Eli Howard
>Vince Brusio: The Divided States of Hysteria touches on how America has fallen to greed. Talk show host icon Phil Donahue once asked American economist Milton Friedman if he ever had a moment of doubt about capitalism, and if “greed was a good idea to run on.” Friedman replied with “tell me, is there some society that you know that doesn’t run on greed? Do you think Russia doesn’t run on greed? Do you think China doesn’t run on greed?” Does this book entertain such philosophical discussions, or do you walk a different path with your story?
Howard Chaykin: Actually, if you've read the book — and I don't know if you have, so forgive me — I don't really feel that I deal all that much with greed as a narrative factor in The Divided States Of Hysteria, so I'm not sure I can answer that question, other than to say that my editorial opens with a quote from Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, to wit "The history of the world, my sweet is those who get eaten and those who eat."
Certainly, the dystopian reality TV series we now live in is far more greed specific in its details. Personally, I'm more selfish than greedy — which I guess makes perfect sense as a liberal — since those on the left seem to be selfish, while the right rewards greed — at the expense, of course, of that vast swathe of the opioid-dependent enraged who vote against their own best interests in the name of "values." Really.
How many "liberty for all" or whatever is called are we going to have for the next 4 to 8 years?
Connor Gonzalez
>Vince Brusio: America is said to be shattered by “nihilism” and “tragedy.” What period of time is being examined to put this catastrophe into perspective for the reader? And did you find yourself at any time encumbered by working within a specific time frame? Did you ever at times think that you were walking a fine line between writing an essay and writing/drawing a comic book? Is this book that personal to you?
Howard Chaykin: I regard the current state of the American polity to be a tragedy, a five car pile-up on a lonely stretch of road, and I think contributing factors to that tragedy include self-serving cynicism, fatuous nihilism, and a facetious, relativist diffidence that misidentifies itself as irony.
I specifically don't define a time frame in the book, so as to keep things from getting too specific.
And comics is jam-packed with talent willing to tell the same Roadrunner vs. Coyote, Good Guy/ Bad Guy, narcissistic Hero/narcissistic Villain narrative disguised as "edgy, or gritty, or dark" or whatever serves as the current justification for that sort of pandering to the audience.
My work, my personality, my career have always been characterized by a point of view. You may disagree with me, but if you think a comic book story with a genuinely worked-out idea and perspective is an essay, then there's always the same adolescent hooey you've been reading since you were fifteen —albeit, edgier, grittier and darker, of course.
Xavier Hall
>Vince Brusio: What would you like to see this book accomplish? If you could ever hear feedback from readers that would bring a smile to your face, what would you like to hear?
Howard Chaykin: As noted above, I remain willfully removed from feedback of any kind. If someone tells me they don't like my stuff, I'm far from delighted, but with a little effort I can deal with it. If they tell me they like it, I have to remember that in all likelihood, they like or love work to which I am indifferent or contemptuous, so neutrality is a fine place to rest.
What do you think Sup Forums? will this be your next favorite comic after Calexit?
>What do you think Sup Forums? will this be your next favorite comic after Calexit?
I think it'd probably be a better comic than Calexit since Chaykin is more aware of the real world.
Jayden Watson
Was Calexit bad? It's obviously a cash-in attempt but it looked sort of like a miserable post-apocalyptic thing and therefore I thought it might have been kind of interesting.
You can't really dismiss Chaykin on the grounds of a current political trend anyway, I agree.
Jaxson Morgan
This interview makes it seem like this is gonna be wild as fuck so I'm pretty excited about it. Seems like this is going to be similar to Special Forces or Army@Love, a bit of a piss take with with some reflection thrown in.
Jacob Ward
>I've made a pledge and promise never to read nothing about me or my work
>My big terror right now is finding what is the contemporary version of the Reichstag fire
Living in a bubble divorced from reality is why the left is losing.
When you can grow up and admit that the people that voted for Trump are not racist sexist nazis you can have the country back. Until then all you can do is publish comics no one will read and shows no one will watch.
The left is wailing at a wall and it is not working.
Ryder Davis
looks like more sjw, libtard propaganda about full of strawmen about "le evil nazi, republican white men are responsible for all the terroism. islam is a religion of people"
the muslim community is becoming more bolder and more aggressive eachday thanks to apologist faggots like that author that refuse to blame anybody accept white men for Islams disgusting acts of terrosim and mass rapes
apologists like him have as much blood on their hand as the actual goat fucking suicide bombers
I suspect it's more of a "What gives rise to the Reichstag Fire Decree in the modern day" deal m8. It's certainly reasonable to fear sweeping anti-individual legislation from the Trump administration given their attempted travel bans and deregulation of ISPs.
Joseph Phillips
Maybe you shouldn't kneejerk when you see a Nazi Germany reference and automatically assume it's primarily about Trump.
>In a nation where no one believes the news, where lies are accepted as long as they support a point-of-view, where rationality and expertise are held suspect as signs of treachery,
Are still actually legit things to worry about, Trump or not. Besides, he's more aware about the problems on the left just as much on the right.
Michael Davis
did democrats literaly firebomb a republican office during the last election
I still find it funny that lefties call Trump lither while their party is stating violent riots and beating up trump supporters like 1930s brown shirts
Logan Myers
>I didn't read the interview entirely REEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Owen Rodriguez
Reminder that leftists snickered at Tommy Robinson on the very spot a terrorist ran innocent people down.
It's not going to change until Europe gets its own 9/11. And even then people like Noam Chomsky will cry false flag because they just cannot believe the guys that say Islam is the destiny of the world actually practice what they preach.
>Obama eroded individual rights far more >Obama supported BLM "My son would have been like Trayvon" >Obama and Hillary drone strike the mid east into a migrant bleeding shit show.
>Anti-fa assaulting people. >BLM killing cops >Migrants killing people
No. It is the right we have to fear.
>Legit things to worry about
That the media is losing its stranglehold on information is a good thing.
>He's more aware about the problems on the let just as much as the right
No. No he is not.
Joseph Young
Sounds like you're upset about being wrong.
Austin Watson
Liberal fiction land
>White people are nazis >Muslims are tolerant and peace loving >Blacks din du nuffin
Real life
>Whites have the most tolerant culture on Earth >Muslims destroying Europe >Blacks kidnap retarded white kid and livestream them torturing him while shouting "fuck white people fuck trump"
Jace Perry
That's not an argument.
Jace Williams
Neither is
Justin Smith
>Obama and Hillary drone strike the mid east into a migrant bleeding shit show. Trump would have done the same thing, he's said as much, also the current migrant crisis started from the invasion of Iraq, Syria alone had a huge amount of Iraqi refugees
Gabriel King
Remember Champions where the heroes go to a small American town where white thugs are attacking and burning down a black church, a mosque, a synagoue, and a gay night club?
Liberals simply do not live on Earth anymore and its killing them. These comics and shows are the best propaganda the right could ever have. You think anyone reading Calexit or watching Dear White People won't realize the world they're being presented in fiction is nothing like the world outside their window?
The left is stuck on Bizarro World.
Justin Barnes
Why the fuck are you talking about Obama? Do you know he's not the President anymore?
Cameron Nguyen
>Trump would have done the same thing, he's said as much
Didn't Trump not want to get involved in Syria in the first place or have I fallen for the ruse cruise?
Chase Ortiz
That might be because he and Shillary's actions in the mid-east have had global consequences that will likely be felt for generations to come.
Cameron Campbell
kek, yeah you can definitely lay that solely at their feet. Nothing happened in the Middle East for the last 200 years until them.
Man I'm not US so I'm not going to get into this but I am a Chaykin fan and seeing Sup Forumsbait over him is really weird. It's kinda like when Americans talk about life in my country, 99% of the time they have no clue as to the lived experience of it. I can't imagine most of the anons who are triggered by this pitch have read much Chaykin.
Kayden Ortiz
>Man I'm not US so I'm not going to get into this but I am a Chaykin fan and seeing Sup Forumsbait over him is really weird.
Because the user can't read an interview much less a comic.
Aaron Reyes
>You can definitely lay that solely at their feet.
>Kills thousands of people in the mid-east
>Destabilize a chunk of territory by removing Assad
>Totally fuck up the "red line"
>Threaten to rev up tensions with the Russians to 1960's levels with no-fly zones
>We have no idea who we've armed in the Syrian conflict because there was no "good" side.
Hillary and Obama dindunuffin they were good politicians Obama deserves another Nobel prize.
Lucas Robinson
I don't think you really understood what I was saying and not saying there man. Good luck with it.
You must be fucking joking. Chaykin is a contender for the best to never win the eisner, with over a hundred issues at DC and marvel each, and the calexit can't even get hateposted.
A better comparison would be Frank Miller's Holy Terror.
Tyler Perez
>I-I can find White People that can do evil things to...
>That means whites and blacks commit crimes in equal proportion r-right?
Jayden Collins
>The right has apparently hijacked patriotism — even as it makes common treasonous cause with our great global foe Oh yeah, Russia! Cause the Cold War is still on, right? >I haven't been this scared since I went to bed nightly presuming I'd be glowing ash by morning Oh, I see in your mind it never ended.
Henry Hall
>And then we urge you to pre-order this book from Image Comics before you hear that it’s sold-out at the comic shops. Lol, implying anyone's gonna bother with this- thing.
Austin Fisher
>Whites have the most tolerant culture on Earth I literally don't know what to say about this dumb statement.
Henry Russell
It's pretty true. Whites are terrified to be called racist. You can have outright calling for genocide against whites by a fairly large figure and they'll be invited to speak at a college campus.
Camden Green
Give me a list of non-european countries that have better social/economic opportunities or protections for sexual or racial minorities.
Ryder Nguyen
Not that user, but yeah, it's true. Whites DO have the most tolerant cultures on Earth.
Now, imagine for a moment that this happened in any non-white majority country in the world, where a group of minority individuals went on the street and preached such things against the majority. Like if a group of Koreans went to Ethiopia and called the Ethiopians as devils and to genocide them, or if some Sudanese did such a thing in Saudi Arabia. Or some Bangladeshi in China?
What do you think would happen to them. In the more civilized nations like Japan or Chile, they would be arrested within 10 minutes. But in the more savage nations they would be literally torn apart by mobs in the streets.
The people who complain about intolerance in the West are like spoiled children. They don't know what true oppression is.
Henry Allen
>Lol one time a white did a bad >Basically I don't understand statistics Also a lot of info came out about that case that basically revealed it was some shit black family trying to scrape money out of the school
Cameron Cooper
>You're talking to someone who's been called a "Left wing faggot"
Levi Sullivan
> >>The right has apparently hijacked patriotism — even as it makes common treasonous cause with our great global foe
And yet, right now, it's coming out that it was the Obama Administration that really DID use their awesome and terrible tools to spy on Americans for political reasons.
This is just a plain fact.
If it had been a Republican doing this awfulness, the news could not play it hard enough.
Cameron Nelson
Well no shit. So did Bush. So did Clinton before that, and so on since we had fucking tools to spy. Question is the legality Trump said Obama was doing that shit illegal, so far he doesn't have the smoking gun to back that up.
Julian Cruz
>So did Bush. So did Clinton before that, and so on since we had fucking tools to spy.
No.
No they did not.
Back that baseless assertion up, or quit babbling about shit you know nothing about.
What Susan Rice did was worse than Watergate. Much worse. It sets a horrifying precedent.
If she doesn't get crucified, and Obama right along with her, along with anybody and everybody else who even thought this might be a good idea, then what's to stop President Trump from doing this?
Adam Lewis
The Trump campaign getting caught up in incidental surveillance because they were talking to Russians that were legally being spied on is not worse than Watergate. Watergate featured the CIA illegally breaking into the Democratic Party's offices to steal documents. Trump's people getting eavesdropped on because they were talking to people who were legally being spied on does not rise to that level.
Gabriel Jenkins
Wrong. Susan Rice illegally had the identities of American citizens unmasked and then leaked to the press. That goes way beyond what happened in Watergate. The Obama administration was illegally spying on American citizens and then publicizing classified information in an attempt to swing an election.
