Frank Miller himself is not defending “Holy Terror,” so I’m certainly not going to defend it on his behalf, and I don’t endorse torture or killing of innocent people, as his hero seems to in the illustration. But that is not what the controversy is about here. It’s over the claim that “Holy Terror” is “anti-Muslim.” I myself am frequently accused of being anti-Muslim, but the claim is false, baseless, and defamatory. It is no more anti-Muslim to oppose jihad violence than it was anti-German to oppose Nazism. It is worth nothing that “Holy Terror” is described below as “a graphic novel in which an original character known as The Fixer sets out to battle Al-Qaeda.” Meanwhile, “many believed the story depicted the religion of Islam, rather than the specific terrorist group of Al-Qaeda, as the book’s villain,” but no evidence is offered to substantiate that claim. Nor does Miller state this in his disavowal of his work. Maybe it’s true. I don’t know; I’ve never read “Holy Terror.” However, it is also true that it is routine for Islamic supremacist groups in the West to claim that opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women is opposition to Islam itself. They also routinely conflate criticism of Islam with hatred of Muslims, and numerous people fall for this, although they have no trouble whatsoever seeing the distinction between criticism of Christianity and hatred of Christians. If Frank Miller had written a comic book about fighting against Christian “right-wing extremists,” and some people accused him of attacking Christianity itself, would this convention had dropped him? Of course not. It would be celebrating him as a hero.
“Frank Miller Removed From Thought Bubble Comic Convention Guest List After Being Accused Of Propagating ‘Abhorrent Anti-Muslim Hate,'” by Spencer Baculi, The Mix, July 29, 2021 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
Legendary comic book industry veteran Frank Miller, whose bibliography includes Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Daredevil, and 300, has been removed from the guest list for the upcoming Though Bubble UK Comic Convention after a number of attendees threatened to boycott the event based on their belief that the creator “is responsible for propagation of abhorrent anti-Muslim hate”.
Miller was first announced as a guest for the North Yorkshire, England-based comic convention on June 2nd, with his name being emphasized to the same degree as fellow special guests Joëlle Jones (Wonder Girl) and Christian Ward (New Mutants) on a promotional poster for the event released that same day.
Though Miller’s initial invitation announcement seemed to come and go without any incident, on July 27th, award-winning cartoonist and small press publisher ShortBox founder Zainab Akhtar revealed that they would “no longer be attending Thought Bubble festival this November” in protest of Miller’s attendance.
In a statement announcing her protest of the convention, Akhtar asserted, “As a proud Muslim woman, I cannot in good conscience attend a festival that deems it appropriate to invite and platform Frank Miller, a person who is responsible for the propagation of abhorrent anti-Muslim hate, particularly via his work.”
“Anti-Muslim bigotry is repugnant and condemnable yet has become so deeply rooted, so widely accepted in society that it is not even given a cursory consideration, as evidenced once again in this situation,” Akhtar continued. “I cannot comprehend how time and time again, festivals and communities within comics espouse values regarding inclusivity, diversity, ‘comics being for everyone’, zero tolerance on hate, but all that lip-service evaporates when they are asked to enact those same values.”
In a follow-up tweet, Akhtar stated that though she had “first contacted Thought Bubble about this privately, 8 weeks ago” and had been “assured action would be taken”, Miller’s continued invitation made her feel as if “it’s been communicated to me that I am the acceptable loss: repercussions to my career/income over repercussions to theirs.”
Though Akhtar does not cite any specific instances of anti-Muslim bigotry from Miller, it is assumed that she is referring to his creation of Holy Terror, a graphic novel in which an original character known as The Fixer sets out to battle Al-Qaeda.
Originally developed for DC as a Batman story, Holy Terror would release to widespread criticism, as many believed the story depicted the religion of Islam, rather than the specific terrorist group of Al-Qaeda, as the book’s villain.
However, while Miller stood by his work upon its publication in 2006, he has since changed his opinion of the self-admitted “propaganda” story.
“When I look at Holy Terror, which I really don’t do all that often, I can really feel the anger ripple out of the pages. There are places where it is bloodthirsty beyond belief,” Miller told The Guardian’s Sam Thielman in 2018. “I don’t want to go back and start erasing books I did,” he replies. “I don’t want to wipe out chapters of my own biography. But I’m not capable of that book again.”
As Akhtar’s tweet soon sparked calls to boycott the entire convention amongst her supporters, Though Bubble ultimately announced on July 28th that “Frank Miller will not be attending Thought Bubble.”
“Over the last fourteen years Thought Bubble has grown into an amazing community of comic creators and fans who we love, trust and respect. We have let you down, and in our commitment to maintaining Thought Bubble as a safe space for all, we have fallen short,” read the convention organizer’s statement. “We exist to share the art form and its worlds with people. If any individual, group or community feels uncomfortable or excluded from our show then we’ve failed.”
“We know that many of you are disappointed in us, and have been expecting a comment on this before now,” they continued. “We are sorry for our silence while we’ve been trying to fix this. Frank Miller will not be attending Thought Bubble.”
Continuing their statement, the organizers further affirmed that they were “deeply sorry, particularly to those who we should be standing up for the most,” and hoped “that you can give us the opportunity to make this better and we thank you for holding us accountable.”
“We know there is still more to discuss and we will be replying to those who have been in touch, we hope you can bear with us while we do this,” the statement concluded. “We won’t let you down again.”…
libertyORdeath says
New comics are either remakes of old stories, or woke garbage. Personally, I’d be quite fine with not participating.
Btw, if you can’t separate Al Qaida from the other 1 billion plus muslims then YOU are the bigot.
Kashyap says
What has happened to a civilized & sane society? The same society does not take action against Islamists who spit venom at all moments. God save humanity from beastly bodies in humanform.
mortimer says
What has happened to society is Leftism and the cult of the Frankfurt School which intentionally conflate ideas in order to mischaracterize people and then condemn them as ‘enemies of the state’. It’s an old Stalinist trick. As an example, Stalin referred to all of his opponents as ‘FASCISTS’, merely because it was a dirty thing to say about them … not because there was any truth to it. Stalin even called Trotsky and his followers ‘Fascists’ as well. It was just the dirtiest thing he could say in his vocabulary. That allowed other Bolsheviks to hate the Trotsyites and condemn them to prison camps without a trial.
The so-called ‘critical theory’ of the Frankfurt school should be common knowledge today among people involved in debating issues. The purpose of the ‘critical theory’ is to label and slander opponents of Leftism and then exclude them from the public discourse.
The Leftist ‘critical theory’ is meant to allow the Leftists to avoid debating their ideas, since totalitarian Leftism cannot be successfully defended by reasonable arguments.
James Lincoln says
Good post, mortimer.
gravenimage says
+1
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
An interesting philosophical question…
True or false?: “Opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women is opposition to Islam itself.”
mortimer says
Mark Spahn is actually asking whether ‘Islamism’ (political Islam) is the same as the religion of Islam. We could give our subjective opinions about the nature of Islam, but an objective measurable answer is available. If we analyze the amount of primary Islamic text devoted to different topics, we find the following.
-Islam is the doctrine found in the Islamic Trilogy: it is mostly political and only partly religious
-51% of the Islamic ‘trilogy’ (Koran, Sira and Bukhari) is political; 14% is about Allah: the rest is about Mohammed
-9.3% of Islamic Trilogy is devoted to Jew hatred
– for comparison, 7% of Mein Kampf is Jew hatred
– 17% of Medinan Koran is Jew hatred
– 8.9% of hadiths are Jew hatred
– 12% of Sira is Jew hatred
– 150 followers after 13 years in Mecca as a religious preacher
– 11 new followers were added per year when Islam was a tolerant religion
– 100,000 followers were added after 10 years in Medina as head of a political empire
– 10,000 new members per year were added in last 9 years of Mohammed’s life after intolerant jihad implemented.
– 5% of Koran verses women held in high esteem = as mothers and for obedience
– 23% of Koran verses women are equal = if she obeyed her husband … is that equal?
– 71% of Koran verses women held in low esteem
– Conclusion: Islam is a politico-religious teaching found in the Koran Sira and hadiths; it is mainly political, largely a personality cult that worships Mohammed and partly religious
Infidel says
No, that’s not what he’s asking. He’s asking whether opposition to jihad – as illustrated by the comic display above – is the same as opposition to islam
After all these years here, if you’ve not figured that out, you never will
Infidel says
True!
That’s what the reaction to this comic strip illustrates. I looked at the illustration, and the presumed villain of the piece yells ‘Jihad’ before the other character zaps him
Essentially, the hero is dinging jihad, which is as sacred to islam as rosaries are to Catholics
Beneath the Veil of Consciousness says
II’d love to know what individual/s, group/s,
and/or organization/s was/were behind him being cancelled. Another victim in the not so soft war of leftist/jihad blackmail and propaganda campaigns.
Infidel says
What’s news to me in this story is that there are still non-woke creators left in the Comics creation world. Superheroes were one of my favorite genres, but I lost my taste for them after the Superman movie in which he dies. For me, that genre died w/ him
James Lincoln says
Infidel,
This may sound very old-school, but my favorite superhero is Superman from the original 1952-1958 TV series starring George Reeves…
Infidel says
James
My favorite superhero was in the 90s, when I first came to this country, and watched Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher on ABC’s ‘Lois & Clark: the new Adventures of Superman’. And while a lot of Hollywood went Liberal, Dean Cain to this day is a hero on our side
Talking of old school, I was more into ‘He-man and the masters of the universe’ back in the day. As well as Scooby Doo, which was a favorite since every supernatural event was exposed by the gang as crooks rigging certain events to look supernatural
gravenimage says
I enjoyed “Lois & Clark” as well. And Dean Cain has stuck to his principles–often to the detriment of his career.
gravenimage says
‘Batman’ cartoonist Frank Miller dropped from comic convention over accusation of ‘anti-Muslim hate’
…………..
This is grotesque–Frank Miller is one of the greatest creative figures in comics.
Then, since when is opposing *Al Qaeda* a bad thing? Are they saying that all Muslims support Al Qaeda?
Further, not every writer endorces all of the actions of their characters. Does anyone think that JK Rowling is a fan of Voldemort, or that JRR Martin supports the NIght King? All just nuts.
For an unapologetic anti-Jihadist cartoonist, check out Bosch Fawstin and his Pigman/Infidel comics. He is a frequent contributor to Jihad Watch.
https://theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com/search/label/Comic%20Books
Crusades Were Right says
“It is no more anti-Muslim to oppose jihad violence than it was anti-German to oppose Nazism”
A couple of points about this assertion:
1. Is it not true that “opposing” Nazism necessarily involved “opposing” Germany and Germans in practice?
2. Even if “opposing” Nazism only involved “opposing” Nazis (the perpetrators of Nazism), how can one “oppose” jihad violence without also being “opposed” to Islam and Muslims (the ideology behind, and perpetrators of, jihad violence)?
Wait – I already hear the “not all Muslims” objection. (“Not all Muslims engage in jihad violence!”) Imagine someone raising this objection regarding Nazis: “Not all Nazis committed crimes against humanity! In fact, some of them even thwarted them – remember Oskar Schindler?”
Should we therefore say: “I’m not opposed to Nazism or Nazis, only to Nazi atrocities and violence, and the particular Nazis who perpetrated them.”?
Somehow I can’t see that becoming a popular stance.
Infidel says
Not just that, the 2 ain’t exactly parallel analogies
Being German was and is an immutable characterestic: something one is born w/. Yeah, one can emigrate and change one’s citizenship to another country, and even change his or her name, but ethnically, that person would remain German
That’s not the case w/ being muslim. Being muslim is a matter of belief, not ethnicity, and most muslim countries do have non-muslim citizens who share the ethnicity of the majority population. If a muslim apostatizes, particularly converting to another religion, then he is no longer muslim
So being opposed to or even hating (something I don’t recommend, since hatred does more damage to the person doing the hating than the person being hated) muslims is not the same as hating Germans. Herr Friedrick Mannheim can do nothing about the fact that he is German. While Ahmed Zubeir can do everything about the fact that he is muslim: he can, for instance, convert to Christianity w/o even changing his name
SAFI says
that’s somewhat more true for other religions than for Islam though. given the death for apostasy… I mean Ahmed Zubeir cannot always convert to another religion and be fully confident he wont be murdered by his former coreligionists for it…
Infidel says
So right now, Ahmed Zubeir has the ‘coward’s option’, since one side is threatening him, while the other is not. That needs to change so that one side threatens him if he switches sides, and the other side promises to make his life miserable i.e. boycott him, assume the worst about him and that he’s the enemy,… if he doesn’t switch
So far, he’s had the easy way out by remaining out of the crosshairs of either side and empowering the jihadists on his side, and never having to state which side he truly is on. Once he’s forced to pick a side, knowing that things will be bad either way, he’d likely pick the one that reflects his own personal principles. Even if it means siding w/ islam b’cos he’s ignorant about what it really teaches
Crusades Were Right says
@Infidel:
It is clear that being “anti-Nazi” is considered a perfectly OK thing to be in the Western world, but for some reason being “anti-Muslim” is considered “bad”, even though Nazism was utterly defeated and poses no threat in modern times, whereas Islam clearly poses a threat to the West.
The only reason for this double standard that I can see is that “Nazi” has effectively become a “woke”/leftist codeword standing for European/Western nationalists, Christians and freedom-lovers – the groups who stand in the left’s path to total control of the West; and “Muslims” has also become a codeword, standing for “Asians” or “brown people” that the left regards as allies in their struggle for total power. Ergo “anti-Muslim” = “racist”.
But what does it REALLY mean to be “anti-Muslim”? Seems to me it can mean different things in different circumstances. For example, it could mean taking measures specifically to counter jihad violence. But it could also mean banning Islamic dress, or refusing permission to build a mosque, or deporting an imam who preaches jihad back to his country of origin. It could also mean simply attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity, or even just speaking in public spaces (such as this one) about what Islam actually is.
Nobody bats an eyelid when folk are being “anti-Catholic”. UK law, for example, forbids Catholics from becoming the monarch. Lots of folk on the internet deny and condemn the Catholic doctrines of transubstantiation and papal supremacy. And nobody will find himself in hot water for drawing attention to sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic religious orders.
Infidel says
CWR
I was thinking of ‘anti-Nazi’ in the original sense of the term, as opposed to the woke sense to which the Left has converted it. I’m not even gonna start on that one, since in their bizzaro world, Whites are evil, Asians are ‘White-Adjacent’, Blacks are good, Hispanics are split b/w ‘White Hispanics’ (i..e. anti-Communist Cubans, Venezuelans, Colombians) and ‘Black Hispanics’ (Mexicans, Salvadorians, et al) It’s too stupid to even start taking seriously
gravenimage says
Good points, Crusades Were Right and Infidel. German is a nationality–Islam is an ideology–very different things.
Certainly, there is nothing intrinsically Nazi about being born German–and Germany has had nothing to do Fascism for most of its history. But if one is Muslim one embraces a creed that preaches Jihad terror, and the “perfect man” “Prophet” Muhammed was himself a Jihadist, and Jihad is deemed the highest achievement of a Muslum, and the only thing that guarantees paradise–this makes opposing Jihad much more problematic.
Crusades Were Right says
“It is no more anti-Muslim to oppose jihad violence than it was anti-German to oppose Nazism”
Further to my earlier comment (above) about this assertion, let me add this:
The problem with this assertion is that “jihad violence” is the “poison FRUIT” of an ideological “tree” (Islam), whilst “Nazism” is the TREE that bore “poison fruit” (violent expansionism, racist oppression, genocide, etc).
If ONE “tree” is deserving of “opposition”, why not the OTHER one?
Giacomo Latta says
When those who internalize the koran and all that is Islam they become Islam itself.
James Lincoln says
“It is no more anti-Muslim to oppose jihad violence than it was anti-German to oppose Nazism”
My take:
A muslim supports, in varying degrees, islam.
And:
Islam is a totalitarian religious/political ideology whose ultimate goal is to impose sharia law throughout the world. This is carried out through jihad.
Historically – from 1933-1945 – a Nazi supported, in varying degrees, Nazism.
Nazism was a fascist totalitarian ideology whose ultimate goal was to impose Nazism throughout the world. This was carried out by the Nazi military force.
Not all Germans supported Nazism. Roughly 44% of Germans voted for Adolf Hitler in 1933.
So it was rational to be anti-Nazi but not rational to be anti-German since many Germans were not Nazis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_election
But ALL muslims support, in varying degrees, islam – which supports jihad.
It is therefore rational to be anti-muslim.
Am I missing something???
gravenimage says
Spot on, James.
Wellington says
Seconded, gravenimage. I hold ALL adult Muslims accountable for adhering to a belief system which demands death for apostasy, sanctions rape and detests liberty to such an extent that criticism of Islam can result in death. Damn sick of the jihad rot as well and the way non-Muslims are treated in Muslim lands. And yet Muslims come to non-Muslim Western nations and just expect to have full freedom of religion and enjoy all the other “perks” that Western nations offer—rank hypocrisy on display here and I’m sick of it.
Moreover, the so-called moderate or cultural Muslims give cover to the most “devout”—read “barbaric” here—Muslims. No adult Muslim gets a pass from me if in their heart they are willingly Muslim. Not one.
James Lincoln says
Thank you Wellington and gravenimage.